


so bad all my bones shake

by dorothymcshane



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-18 16:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 40,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2354354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothymcshane/pseuds/dorothymcshane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>University AU with Twelve as a professor and Clara as a student who really shouldn't feel the way she does for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clara’s never seen him before, but the moment he enters the coffee shop, she knows it’s him. His coat gives him away, black with red linings, very magician-like, but she would have recognised him even if he hadn’t been wearing it. Her flatmate Amy hasn’t been able to shut up about him since she attended the first lecture of the French history class that he’s teaching at the university.

   He’s taller than Clara expected him to be, but otherwise he looks exactly like Amy’s described him to her. Skinny with tousled, grey hair and sharp eyebrows, radiating an almost unsettling unearthliness.

   When he reaches Clara, she realises she’s staring, and can feel her cheeks blushing, but unfortunately she’s not ashamed enough to actually stop looking at him.

   “Coffee, please,” he says, his accent Scottish. Yep, it’s definitely him. “Black.”

   Clara pours him a cup of coffee without paying much attention to what she’s doing. “Anything else?”

   “No, thank you.” He grabs the cup and her gaze instinctively follows his hands. His fingers are long and thin, piano fingers, and he’s not wearing a ring. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

   Clara tears her gaze away from his hands. “Sorry, what?”

   “I just thought …” he begins with something absent-minded in his tone, before shaking his head. “You look awfully familiar, that’s all, but I suppose I must have mistaken you for somebody else.”

   “I suppose you must have.”

   When he gives her two pounds for the coffee, their hands touch for the shortest moment. It’s enough to make Clara’s heart race, though, and that’s when she knows she’s in trouble.

   Oh, fuck.

 

 

“I saw him, today.”

   Clara’s lying on the sofa in the flat she and Amy shares, flicking through a book about nineteenth century literature that she has to read for one of her classes.

   “Who?” Amy shouts from the kitchen, before bursting through the door to the living room and sitting down on the table in front of the sofa. “The Doctor? You saw the Doctor?”

   “The very one.”

   Amy’s almost glowing with anticipation. “So …?”

   “So …?” Clara echoes with a teasing smile on her lips.

   “Did he live up to your expectations?” Amy asks, swinging her legs back and forth through the air. “Wait, you don’t have to answer that, I already know he did. Of course he did.”

   Clara turns the page in the book she’s reading. “How old is he, anyway?”

   “Fifty? Sixty?” Amy shrugs. “Does it matter?”

   “He could be your dad!”

   Amy smacks Clara on the head with an old newspaper that is lying on the table. “Well, he isn’t. Thank god for that.”

   “He looked good, though,” Clara has to admit.

   Amy’s face breaks into a smile. “Of course he did.”

   “You’re not seriously planning on seducing him, are you?” Clara asks her. “He’s your teacher. And he’s probably already got a girlfriend. Or boyfriend.”

   “Well,” Amy says, still smiling, “there’s no harm in fantasising, is there?”

   “Amy!”

   “What? You’ve never seemed bothered by me talking about him before.”

   “That was I met him. He wasn’t real, back then, you know? He was just a story.”

   Amy jumps up from the table and winks at Clara before disappearing back into the kitchen. “We’re all stories in the end.”

 

 

Clara doesn’t want to admit it to herself, but she looks for him everywhere she goes. Usually, she never notices anybody around her, too lost in her own thoughts, but now she searches the faces of everybody she passes for traces of him. Once, she thinks she’s found him, but the Dr Martens and dark jeans turn out to belong to an art student.

   She almost forgets that she’s supposed to meet John for a cup of coffee on Thursday, but thankfully, Amy reminds her of it. Clara’s late, though, five minutes late, and it’s pouring down rain outside. She hasn’t got time to search for her umbrella, so she runs across the campus with her hands over her head, pointlessly hoping not to get too soaked.

   John’s sitting at a table in the middle of the coffee shop, glancing down at the screen of his phone, his eyes covered by his floppy hair. Clara hasn’t seen him in weeks, and she’s surprised by realising how much she's missed him.

   They met back during their first year at the university, always running into each other as he and Amy have been best friends since forever. Last spring, Amy and John had a fallout because of a boy Amy was dating, though, and since then, the relationship between Clara and John has been a little rocky, too, as Clara felt that she had to choose Amy’s side in the conflict.

   “Hi there,” she says, reaching for his coffee cup to take a sip from it. “Sorry I’m late. I’ve just got a lot on my mind right now.”

   He looks up at her through all of his hair and grins. “Oh, don’t worry, it’s just nice not being the one who is late, for once.”

   “Will you be okay for a couple of more minutes if I leave you alone again to go and order a cup of coffee for myself?”

   “I’m always okay,” he says. “I’m the king of okay.”

   Clara rolls her eyes at him before turning around and walking towards the counter of the café with quick steps. For the first time in a week, she doesn’t pay anyone around her any attention, and when she collides with him, it’s already too late.

   “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she exclaims.

   Then, she notices his boots.

   “In a hurry, are we?” the Doctor asks her, a crooked smile playing on his lips.

   “No,” she says, the word falling from her mouth before she’s had time to reflect upon his question. “Yes, I mean. Or, just … sorry, I’m sorry.”

   He ignores her apologies. “You’re Clara. Clara Oswald.”

   “How do you know who I am?”

   “I knew I’d seen you somewhere before,” he continues enthusiastically.

   Clara doesn’t try to hide the fact that she’s staring at him, as she doubts he’s even aware of anything else than whatever’s going on inside his head. “What are you on about?”

   “You’re Vastra and Jenny’s daughter!”

   “You know my parents?”

   He gives her a smile, but the gaze in his eyes is light years away. “They were my best friends during my own time as a student here. We used to solve mysteries together. Read lots of science fiction novels.”

   “Mysteries?”

   “How are they? Still head over heels in love?”

   Clara shrugs. “I suppose so.”

   “Must be nice,” the Doctor says, a sadness slowly creeping into the expression on his face. “Wish them well from me, will you?”

   Clara nods, realising that she doesn’t even know his name a moment too late, as he’s already left the coffee shop.

   She doesn’t even know his name.


	2. Chapter 2

“Who was that?” John asks Clara as soon as she’s sat down in front of him again, this time slightly more flustered and with a cup of coffee in her hands.

   “Who?” she asks him, like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but unfortunately, acting’s not one of her talents. 

   John doesn’t even pretend to hear her question. “Clara! Don’t tell me you’re having a secret affair with a professor!”

   “What?” This time her confusion is sincere, and she can’t help but laugh at the suggestion. “No, he’s an old friend of my parents.”

   “You’re having an affair with an old friend of your parents?”

   When she realises that he’s only teasing her, she buries her face in her hands and groans quietly. “I hate you.”

   She can hear the smile on his lips in his voice even though she can’t see it. “No, you don’t.”

   “So,” Clara says, eager to change the topic of conversation, “what have you been up to since I last saw you?”

   “Oh, not much, not much. Investigated a haunted house, accidentally travelled to the South Pole, saved the world a couple of times, the usual, you know.”

   Clara smiles behind her coffee cup. “Sounds more fun than studying.”

   “Yeah.” He looks down for a moment, and when he looks back up, the humour in his eyes has been replaced by something much more melancholic. “How’s Amy doing?”

   Clara shrugs. “She’s …” Going out every other night, flirting with everybody she comes across, having sex with all the wrong people, coming home to ugly cry about how miserable she feels against Clara’s shoulders? “Fine. She’s fine.”

   “Oh.”

   The look on John’s face makes Clara want to hug him, but instead she settles for giving him the least harmful piece of the truth. “She misses you, I’m sure of it. You just need to give her some time.”

   “I haven’t seen her in months.”

   “Give it one more month,” Clara tells him. “If you haven’t heard of her before then, I’ll arrange a top secret meeting between the two of you, something she can’t get out of.”

   “I’m not sure about whether that’s a good idea …”

   “Doesn’t matter,” Clara says, “because you’ll have heard of her before I’ll have to go that far.”

 

 

“Did he mention me?” is the first question Amy asks Clara when she returns to their flat.

   Clara leans her back against one of the walls in the living room and gives Amy a knowing look. “Why don’t you call him and ask him yourself?”

   Amy doesn’t look up from the costume drama she’s watching on the television. “Forget it, then, because that’s not going to happen.”

   “Why not?” Clara demands. “You clearly miss him.”

   “Of course I miss him! He’s my best friend! Was. He was my best friend.”

   “You’re not even dating Rory anymore,” Clara says. “You don’t have any reasons not to call him.”

   Amy shakes her head. “You don’t understand.”

   “No, I don’t, so please, explain what’s going on to me.”

   “I abandoned him,” Amy says, staring straight at the screen of the television, her hands clenched around the remote control. “I abandoned him when he needed me the most. Because of some stupid boy.”

   “Trust me, he’s forgiven you.”

   “I know,” Amy says, her voice shaking. “He always forgives me, and I just … I just fuck everything up, over and over again.”

   Clara closes the distance between them and carefully puts her arms around Amy. As tough as she looks, with her burning red hair and one hundred and eighty centimetres, she’s really as fragile as a snowflake. “You know that’s not true.”

   Amy shakes her head again, but the shadow of a smile is tugging at the corners of her mouth.

 

 

“I think I’ll sign up for that history course,” Clara tells Amy the next morning, when they’re sitting at the table in their kitchen, Clara nibbling on a sandwich, Amy buried in a newspaper.

   “Clara!” Amy exclaims, her attention all at once focused on Clara. “Really?”

   “It’s only been two weeks, I can’t have missed that much of it.”

   “Don’t you have enough courses to focus on? You know, courses that you actually are required to take in order to be able to graduate?”

   Clara pouts at Amy. “It would help me understand the circumstances under which several of the novels I’m studying were written.”

   “And the fact that the Doctor’s the one teaching the class doesn’t have anything to do with this utterly stupid, no, idiotic, decision?”

   “I thought you would be happy,” Clara says, ignoring Amy’s comment. “Now you won’t have to suffer through the course on your own.”

   “You’re so sure of that they’re going to allow this.”

   “Well, I can be very persuasive.”

   Amy gives Clara an amused look. “Looking forward to seeing you there, then.”

   Clara does her best to avoid Amy’s gaze by preoccupying herself with her sandwich. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Clara is caught "eavesdropping" on the Doctor & attends her first lecture with him. There will be flirting.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman Clara talks to in the office of the university meets her request with the same confusion as Amy, but tells Clara that it shouldn't be impossible to arrange, as long as the Doctor doesn’t have a problem with it.

   So that’s how Clara finds herself standing in front of the door to the Doctor’s office, nervously resting one of her hands on the surface of the door, trying to gather enough courage to knock.

   Amy’s right, of course, the idea’s idiotic, but Clara needs to see the Doctor again. She doesn’t know why she’s so intrigued by him, why she’s fallen so hard for someone she shouldn’t even be thinking about, but she is, and she has, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

   That’s when someone opens the door right in Clara’s face and she has to take a couple of steps back in order to regain her balance.

   Thankfully, the person opening the door isn’t the Doctor, but another student, who seems as embarrassed as Clara by the situation. She barely hears any of his apologies, though, and not only because of the throbbing in her head.

   “Were you eavesdropping?” the Doctor asks her with one of his crooked smiles on his lips when the other student has left the corridor.

   “No!” Clara mostly wants to turn around and forget that she was ever there, but as he’d probably take that as a sign of that she really was eavesdropping, she forces herself not to move her feet. “You can’t even hear anything through the door.”

   The Doctor’s still smiling, the smug bastard. “So you were trying to eavesdrop?”

   “I wasn’t … look, I came here to talk to you about signing up for your French history course, but don’t worry, I’ll leave you alone now and try not to bother you anymore …”

   The Doctor crosses the floor of his office with long steps until he’s standing right in front of her. For a moment he just watches her in silence, and then he carefully strokes a fingertip across her forehead. “You got yourself a proper bump there, didn’t you?”

   “Oh,” she finds herself saying while slowly breathing out, realising that she’s been holding her breath for several seconds. “Yeah. It’s not … I can hardly feel it.”

   “You flinched when I touched it,” the Doctor says, still standing so close to her that she’s having trouble focusing on anything but his presence. “I’d say it hurts more than you would like to admit.”

   Clara doesn’t know what to say, so she just shrugs.

   “So, you want to sign up for my history course?” the Doctor continues, finally taking a couple of steps back, but still keeping his gaze focused on her.

   “If you want another student.”

   “You’re not a history student, though.”

   “No,” Clara admits. “I study literature. But I think taking a history class would be …”

   “Okay,” the Doctor interrupts her. “See you at three o’clock.”

   She can feel herself staring at him again, but not because of her irrational feelings for him, this time. “What?”

   The Doctor raises one of his eyebrows. “Are you already regretting your decision?”

   “No, I just …” She suddenly finds herself smiling. “See you at three o’clock.”

 

 

“Why is he called the Doctor?” Clara asks Amy before the lecture has begun. They’re sitting in the back of the classroom, as Clara doesn’t want to attract more attention to herself than what is absolutely necessary. At first, Amy seemed a little surprised by actually seeing Clara there, but it didn’t take long for her to come to terms with it.

   “I don’t know,” Amy admits. “I think it’s just because nobody dares to ask him about what his real name is.”

   “Didn’t he introduce himself to you?”

   “Only as the Doctor,” Amy says, playing with one of her pens. “Why do you even care?”

   Luckily Clara doesn’t have time to answer that, as the Doctor’s entered the room, dressed in his magician coat, wearing a sly smile on his lips, and his mere presence has made all the other chatter in the room die out.

   Clara isn’t even aware of any of the words that he utters, she’s too busy noticing how … different he appears, standing in front of the class. His voice is louder, his accent less pronounced. The twinkle in his eyes is still there, but somehow tucked beneath the surface. He moves less clumsily, with something that Clara would almost dare to call elegance in his motions.

   It’s fascinating.

   It’s also obvious that he really cares for the subject he’s teaching. Clara’s never been particularly interested in history, especially not in wars and other conflicts between different countries, but the Doctor describes them so enthusiastically that she’d probably be intrigued no matter what he was talking about.

   When she and Amy are on their way out, after he’s told the class that the lecture is over, he stops Clara dead in her tracks by asking her to stay there for another minute. Clara gives Amy a forgiving look before abandoning her and walking up to the Doctor.

   “So, can I expect to see you here again tomorrow or did I already manage to scare you off?” he asks her, his Scottish accent back, dripping off his words.

   Clara gives him a tentative smile. “I think I can handle being a little scared now and then.”

   “Your head looks better. Not as swollen anymore.”

   Clara instinctively moves one of her hands up to her forehead, which looked bluish and twice its normal size when she checked on it in her mirror before the lecture. “Oh, shut up.”

   “The price one pays for eavesdropping, eh?”

   “I wasn’t eavesdropping!”

   “Yeah, yeah, you were just standing there with your head leant against the door to my office.”

   “I was nervous about knocking,” Clara admits. “You’re pretty intimidating.”

   He laughs out loud at that. “Intimidating?”

   “I think it’s the eyebrows. Or possibly, the accent.”

   “I’ve never liked my eyebrows,” the Doctor mumbles. “They’re crosser than the rest of my face.”

   “How did you become interested in history?” Clara finds herself asking him, mostly because she doesn’t want to leave him yet, now that she’s starting to feel a little bit more comfortable around him. Or, well, her heart’s still beating like crazy in her chest, but at least she’s able to speak without stuttering.

   He sits down on top of his desk and focuses his gaze on her. “How did you become interested in literature?”

   “I asked you first.”

   “History reminds me of that what we do and how we act matters,” he says. “It reminds me of that it’s possible for anyone to be a hero. And, well, I like stories.”

   Clara hides the smile that’s spread across her face behind one of her hands. “I think you just managed to describe exactly why I love literature.”

   “What's your favourite book?” the Doctor asks her, making the question sound almost like a challenge. Maybe it is.

   Clara hesitates for a moment. Usually she answers the question by mentioning Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, as it’s the answer people seem to expect from her and doesn’t require her to give them an explanation for her choice, but for some reason she knows that the Doctor wouldn’t accept that answer. So instead, she tells him the truth. “The Time Traveller’s Wife.”

   “Haven’t read it.”

   “You should,” Clara says, rummaging through her bag. It doesn’t take long for her to find her copy of the novel, worn and tattered with ragged edges, and she gives it to the Doctor with shaking hands. “You can borrow my copy, if you want to.”

   “I’m a really slow reader,” he warns her.

   “I’ve got another copy of it at home,” Clara admits with a laugh.

   He taps his fingertips against the cover of the novel. “I promise I’ll be careful with it.”

   “You’d better be. And I … I’d better get going.”

   “Oh, yeah,” the Doctor says, checking his wristwatch. “Sorry.”

   Clara raises a hand in an awkward gesture in his direction before hurrying towards the door. Outside, Amy’s waiting for her with an inquiring look on her face, and Clara mentally prepares herself for the inevitable questions.


	4. Chapter 4

“I think you should go out on a date,” Amy tells Clara. “With someone your own age.”

   Clara’s sitting at the table in their kitchen, buried in Amy’s notes from the first two weeks of the history course with the Doctor. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

   “I know this girl who would be perfect for you.”

   “I’m sure you do, but I’m not interested.”

   Amy leans her elbows against the table and watches Clara in silence for a couple of seconds before opening her mouth again. “Clara, he’s your professor.”

   Clara slams the notebook shut and meets Amy’s eyes. “You were the one who said that there’s nothing wrong with fantasising.”

   “There’s not,” Amy says, “but I know you, and you don’t do crushes. You never simply like people, you fall in love with them, unconditionally and irrevocably …”

   “Did you just quote Twilight?”

   “It seemed fitting. Hush. I was trying to make a point.”

   “Point made,” Clara says, “but I don’t love the Doctor. I barely know him.”

   “I worry about you, you know,” Amy surprises Clara by saying. “You’ve never shown the slightest interest in  _anyone_  since Nina broke up with you.”

   Clara still flinches at the mention of Nina’s name, but she does her best not to let it show, as the last thing in the world she wants is for Amy to have to worry about her. “It was a tough breakup.”

   “I know, I know. But it was also two and a half years ago.”

   “I never dated before I met her,” Clara says, “and I’m not going to start now. It’s not because I’m not over her, it’s because it's who I am.”

   “And that’s exactly why I think you should leave the Doctor alone. Because you’re never going to get your happy ending together with him.”

   Clara resists the urge to throw Amy’s notebook across the room. “And what if I don’t want a happy ending?”

   Amy tilts her head and then smiles knowingly. “Yeah, you do.”

 

 

Clara doesn’t say a word to the Doctor during the next two of his lectures that she attends. He likes putting students on the spot by asking them questions about things they haven’t covered in the class, but he never calls on Clara. He watches her, though, or at least she thinks he does, but every time their eyes meet, he quickly looks away.

   On Friday afternoon, when Clara’s standing behind the counter in the coffee shop where she works, sweaty and with her hair in a tousled ponytail, she finds him standing in front of her, without having noticed him entering the café.

   “Hi,” she manages to say, even though she mostly wants the floor to open up and swallow her.

   “Hello.” He sounds amused. “A cup of coffee, please.”

   “Black?”

   “Black.”

   When she’s poured him the coffee and he’s paid her for it, he hesitates for a second before opening his mouth again. “I’ve started reading the book.”

   “I’d love to discuss it with you, but as you can see, I’m working, so this is really not a good time,” Clara says. Her words sound harsher than she intended them to, but perhaps that is for the best.

   “What are you doing?” the Doctor asks her, leaning against the counter, slowly sipping his coffee.

   “I’m not doing anything.”

   “You’re a terrible liar.”

   “I’m not.” She takes a deep breath in order to calm herself down. “Lying, that is.”

   “Did your mothers say anything?”

   “What? No.”

   “Then why are you acting so weird?”                                    

   Thankfully, their conversation is interrupted by an older couple entering the coffee shop and wanting to order coffee and chips, and Clara has to look away from the Doctor and try to explain that they don’t sell chips here to them. When she’s convinced them to buy sandwiches instead, he’s nowhere to be seen anymore.

 

 

When Clara’s work shift is over and she has showered and changed into one of her dresses, she decides to call Vastra and ask her about the Doctor, as she’s interested in what he meant by asking her about whether her mothers have said anything.

   “Clara?”

   Vastra almost sounds worried, and Clara can’t help but feel guilty for calling her parents so seldom that they aren’t used to hearing from her other than when she’s on the train back home. “Yeah. Hi.”

   “Are you okay?”

   “Of course I’m okay.”

   “Out of money?”

   “No, no, everything’s fine, I just … I missed you. And Jenny.”

   “There’s something you’re not telling me,” Vastra says. Clara can hear the suspicion in her voice, and wishes she would have called Jenny instead, as Jenny wants to be able to trust her so badly that she’s willing to believe almost anything she tells her. On the other hand, that’s exactly why Clara didn’t call her. She hates lying to her.

   “I’m taking this history course,” Clara admits, “and the professor, well, he told me that he was a friend of yours, back when you were young.”

   “Are you calling me old?”

   “I would never,” Clara assures her, smiling.

   “So, what’s the name of this supposed friend of mine?”

   Clara nervously taps her fingers against the surface of the table in front of the sofa. “I don’t actually know his name. Everyone just calls him the Doctor.”

   Vastra’s quiet for so long that Clara starts doubting that she’ll ever get an answer from her. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

   “So you know who I’m talking about, then?”

   “Of course.”

   “And …?”

   “And I haven’t talked to him since we graduated, and am not planning to, ever again.”

   Clara wants to ask Vastra about what happened between them, but she can hear the coldness in her voice, and knows Vastra won’t say another word about it.

   To be honest, it’s kind of relieving, as Clara doubts she’d ever be able to deal with finding the Doctor hanging out at their house.


	5. Chapter 5

“You need to change your clothes and do your make-up,” is the first thing Amy tells Clara when she stumbles in through the door to their flat, “because you’re coming out with me tonight.”

   Clara doesn’t even bother with looking up at Amy. “No, I’m not.”

   “Yes, you are,” Amy says, sitting down on the sofa next to Clara and placing her hands on Clara’s cheeks so that Clara can’t avoid her gaze. “I promise you, it’ll be fun.”

   “I hate parties.”

   “Nobody hates parties.”                                 

   “I do.”

   Amy shakes her head, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “If you come with me, I’ll promise you to never mention the Doctor to you again.”

   “Really?”

   “Really,” Amy says. “I’ll talk to you about him and give you advice on ... stuff if you ask me to, of course, but I’ll never bring him up again.”

   “What do you mean by ‘stuff’?” Clara asks her, eyeing her suspiciously. “No, wait, don’t tell me, I don’t think I want to know.”

   Amy winks at her. “Let’s be honest, here, I’ve got way more experience than you when it comes to seducing men.”

   “Like I said,” Clara says, burying her head in one of the cushions, “he’s probably already got a partner.”

   “No, he doesn’t,” Amy says.

   Clara peeks up at Amy over the edge of the cushion. “Do I dare to ask you how on earth you’ve gotten your hands on that piece of information?”

   “Well,” she says, smiling devilishly, “what do you think?”

   “You didn’t ask the Doctor himself, did you?”

   “He’s certainly very, very sexy,” Amy says. “I wouldn’t mind him fucking me over his desk … or perhaps against his blackboard … there are so many possibilities …”

   Clara throws the cushion at her. “Amy!”

   “What?”

   “A couple of days ago you were completely against the idea of me and the Doctor, and now it seems like you’re trying to set us up with each other!”

   Amy bites her lip. “I realised that I was wrong, okay? I want you to be happy, and … I think that the Doctor could be good for you. I would prefer it if you had fallen for somebody your own age, yes, but it’s not fair of me to keep you from him because of something so insignificant. I do think you should be careful, though.”

   “It doesn’t matter,” Clara says, “because he would never fall for me.”

   “Are you really going to give up that easily? That’s not the Clara I know.”

   Clara rolls her eyes at Amy. “Anyway, didn’t we have a party to go to?”

 

 

The party is being held in a house about half a kilometre away from Amy and Clara’s flat, and the music playing there is so loud that the entire neighbourhood must be able to hear it. Clara wants to turn around and run away as soon as they reach the door to the house, but Amy prevents her from escaping by linking arms with her.

   “Did I mention that I hate parties?” Clara whispers, tugging at the stupidly short skirt Amy has persuaded her to wear.

   “Yes, you did. Now stop complaining, you’re here out of your own free will.”

   “Only so that you will stop …” Clara begins, but quickly shuts her mouth again when the door is opened by a boy their age with his hands full of cans of beer.

   “Well, hello, darling,” he exclaims at the sight of Amy, and sloppily kisses her cheeks before giving her and Clara one each of the beer cans. “Fancy seeing you here. And who’s your friend?”

   “This is Clara,” Amy says. She’s smiling, but she’s definitely looking slightly uncomfortable with the situation. “My flatmate. Pretty little thing, isn’t she? She’s got a boyfriend, though, so don’t get any ideas.”

   “I don’t have a boyfriend,” Clara hisses at Amy as soon as the boy has disappeared into the house. It stinks of alcohol and cigarettes and Clara can’t wait until she gets home again so that she can take an hour long shower and wash every trace of the smell out of her hair.

   “I know,” Amy says, “but trust me, you don’t want _him_ to think that you’re interested in him. He eats girls like you for breakfast.”

   Clara gives her a cross look. “What do you mean, ‘girls like you’?”

   “Oh, you know what I mean,” Amy says, before opening her beer and emptying half of the can in one gulp. “Now let’s get this party started, shall we?”

 

 

A couple of hours later, or maybe three, Clara has emptied a fair amount of beer cans herself, and is feeling, if not exactly drunk, extremely tipsy. The world around her sways when she dances – yes, she’s really dancing – and she doesn’t even notice how cold she is anymore. Cold and wet, after having fallen into the pool in the garden of the house at one point.

   She’s just put her arms around the neck of a boy with the bluest eyes she’s ever seen when someone tugs at one of her arms. “Clara, it’s time to go home.”

   “I don’t want to,” she mumbles, finding it weirdly difficult to remember how to pronounce the words. “I want to dance. Don’t you want to dance? Why aren’t you dancing?”

   Amy drags her away from the boy without apologising to him. “You’re drunk, Clara. And … wet? What have you done?”

   “I went swimming,” Clara tells her, giggling. “The water was really cold, but you only live once.”

   “I should record this,” Amy mutters to herself, “and use it as blackmail material against you. Where have you got your shoes?”

   Clara glances down towards her feet. “I can’t remember.” This seems extremely funny to her for some reason.

   “Oh, well, blame yourself.”

   “Why don’t we go to parties more often?” Clara asks Amy, clinging onto one of her arms.

   “Clara, how much have you had to drink?”

   Clara smiles at her, as innocently as she can. “Not much, not much.”

   And then the world around her melts away and all she sees is darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of the Doctor in this chapter, I'll make it up to you in the next one, I promise.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this chapter, I know I had a really fun time writing it!

“I don’t think she needs medical care,” someone says from somewhere far away, “or at least not at the moment, as both her pulse and her breathing are fine, but we should definitely keep an eye at her, because there’s no guarantee of that she won’t get worse.”

   “Where am I?” Clara mumbles.

   “Clara! Can you hear me?”

   She tries to open her eyes, without succeeding to do more than flutter her eyelids a little. “I can hear you.”

   “I think she’s awake.”

   “Thank god. Clara, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

   Clara does her best to make her fingers move, but they don’t seem to want to cooperate with her. “What are you doing here?” she manages to ask him, even though her words sound terribly slurred even to herself.

   “I live here,” he says.

   “No, you don’t.”

   “Barely conscious and still so bossy.”

   Clara absentmindedly interlaces her fingers with his. “Your skin is really warm. Can you hug me?”

   “I don’t like hugs that much …”

   “Please?”

   He carefully puts his arms around her. “Is this okay?”

   “Uh-huh.”

   “I’m sorry,” Clara can hear Amy say in the background. “She doesn’t normally drink this much. She never really drinks at all. I’m the one to blame for all of this.”

   “I don’t care about whose fault it is, I only care about keeping her alive,” the Doctor says.

   “Is this really your house?” Clara asks him, bored of him and Amy talking over her head.

   “It is.”

   “Why are we in your house?” He tries to pull away from her, but she quickly draws him closer to her again. “Hey, I didn’t say you could let me go yet!”

   “I was just going to go and get you some water to drink so that you’d sober up a little.”

   “I can do it,” Amy offers.

   The Doctor grimaces, but doesn’t seem to dare to protest. “The kitchen’s to the right, you won’t be able to miss it.”

   Clara is suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of fatigue and has to close her eyes again, but forces herself to stay awake, as she doesn’t want to miss this moment alone with the Doctor. “Why does everyone call you the Doctor?”

   “Maybe I just hate my real name,” he tells her.

   “ _Are_ you even a Doctor?”

   “I’m taking care of you right now, am I not?”

   She smiles, still keeping her eyes closed. “This is really nice. We should do this again sometime.”

   “If you promise me to never drink this much again, I might just consider it.”

   “Amy was wrong, earlier,” she tells him, feeling herself slip further and further away from consciousness.

   “About … what?”

   “It wasn’t her fault. It was yours.”

 

 

When Clara opens her eyes the next morning, the first thing she notices is the throbbing in her head.

   The second that the bed she’s lying in isn’t her own.

   She tries to remember what happened the night before, but her memories are so blurred that she can’t seem to get a grip of any of them. At least there’s nobody lying next to her in the bed.

   The room is twice the size of Clara’s own bedroom, with light beige walls and huge windows, the sheets in the bed white and fluffy. She could get used to waking up here, if it wasn’t for the fact that she hasn’t got the faintest clue of whose bed it is.

   She’s still wearing her clothes from last night, save for the shoes, so that’s a welcome relief. There’s a glass of water standing on the bedside table, but the water’s lukewarm, so she decides to go and search for the kitchen of the house instead.

   Her legs are a little wobbly and she’s definitely feeling quite nauseous, but she makes it to the door of the room without losing her balance or throwing up. When she sees the photographs that are hanging on the wall outside of the door, though, she almost wishes that she hadn’t.

   _Oh, fuck_.

 

 

The Doctor’s sitting in the kitchen, sipping on a cup of coffee while reading a newspaper. He’s wearing a pair of glasses with thick frames, and for a change, not his magician coat, but a grey t-shirt. He doesn’t seem to notice Clara where she’s standing in the doorway.

   “Fuck,” she whispers to herself, and has all at once forgotten all about her hangover. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Fragments of the previous night are slowly coming back to her, but she still remembers far too little to know why the hell she’s here, in the Doctor’s house.

   “Clara? Is that you?”

   She forces herself to stop grimacing and enters the kitchen. “Yeah. Good morning to you, too.”

   “Feeling better?”

   “I’m sorry,” she says, ignoring his question. “I don’t know what happened last night, but I’m sorry.”

   “You don’t have anything to apologise to me for.”

   “Thank you for letting me stay here – your house is really nice, by the way – but I should get going before Amy starts to worry about where I am.”

   The Doctor gestures towards one of the chairs around the table. “You don’t have to worry about her, she’s here, too, and still sleeping.”

   “How did …”

   “You passed out in front of my house,” he says, and for a moment it almost looks like he’s smirking. “Way to get my attention. Coffee? Or do you prefer tea?”

   “Coffee’s fine,” Clara says, without being more than vaguely aware of the words she utters. “Really? I really passed out in front of your house?”

   “And then I had to hug you for half an hour because you wouldn’t let me go.”

   Clara sinks down on the chair opposite the table to his and buries her head in her hands. “Please tell me you’re messing with me.”

   “Well, I don’t like lying,” he says while pouring her a cup of coffee, “but I suppose I could, if you want me to. Do you want a piece of toast? I’ve got … marmite, peanut butter and several kinds of jam.”

   “Wow, you seem to like spreads.”

   “Half true,” he says. “I don’t like bread. I used to eat cake for breakfast, but then I learned that apparently, that’s not very healthy.”

   He’s rambling in a way Clara hasn’t seen him do before, nervously pulling a hand through his hair, and it’s so adorable that she has to fight the instinct to kiss him right there and right then.

   In order to distract herself, she turns her attention to her coffee cup. “I saw the photographs, upstairs. Who’s the woman? The one with the … space hair?”

   “Space hair?” The Doctor looks slightly confused for a second before he seems to realise whom she’s talking about. “Oh, you mean River.”

   “River?”

   “She’s …” He hesitates for a second. “We were married, a long time ago. She died when the roof of the university library collapsed. You’ve probably heard of the accident.”

   Clara keeps her gaze focused on her hands, unable to look at the Doctor. “I … I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

   “It’s been a long time since then,” he says, but it’s impossible not to notice the sadness in his voice. “Anyway, you said something last night that I’m very interested in hearing more about.”

   Clara groans quietly. “Yeah, I’m not sure about that I’m willing to take responsibility for a single word I said last night.”

   “You told me that it was my fault you were drunk.”

   “Definitely not willing to take responsibility for that statement.”

   “So it was true, then?”

   “No.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Thank you so much for all your likes and comments <3
> 
> 2) This chapter is pretty short, but I'm really busy right now, and a short chapter is better than no chapter at all, right?
> 
> 3) I never thought it would be possible for me to ship these two idiots even more, but then Mummy on the Orient Express happened.

“If there ever was something that I never expected to happen, this was it,” Amy says. She and Clara are sitting next to each other at the Doctor's kitchen table while he’s upstairs looking for aspirin for Clara, as she mistakenly happened to mention her headache to him and he wouldn't listen to her when she told him that he really didn't have to. “But promise me one thing, Clara.”

   “What?” Clara asks her, expecting the worst.

   Amy takes a bite of her piece of toast and then turns her gaze towards Clara. “Never drink that much again.”

   Clara almost starts laughing. “That’s really not something you have to worry about.”

   “So … you talked to him,” Amy continues. “I could hear you from the living room, and I tried to eavesdrop, but you were too fucking quiet.”

   Clara elbows her in the waist. “It was a private conversation!”

   “Private?” Amy echoes, a crooked smile playing on her lips.

   “We talked about his dead wife,” Clara tells her.

   “Oh.”

   “Yeah.”

   “Well, at least it seems like he trusts you.”

   Clara shakes her head, but before she’s opened her mouth, the Doctor has entered the kitchen again, with a couple of tablets in one of his hands.

   “Thank you,” she says, swallowing them with a gulp of her orange juice before standing up from the table. “We should leave now. We’ve got that … thing this afternoon, right, Amy?”

   Amy gives her a sceptical look, but seems to understand that protesting won’t make Clara change her opinion. “Yes. Thank you so much, again, Doctor, for helping me with Clara and letting us stay here.”

   The Doctor looks down at his feet. “Don’t mention it.”

   “See you in class,” Amy says, chewing on her half-eaten piece of toast while following Clara towards the door.

 

 

“I could drop out of the history class,” Clara says. “Tell him that the workload is too heavy.”

   “Why are you doing this, Clara?” Amy asks her. They’re sitting in Clara’s favourite coffee shop – well, except for the one where she works – trying to catch up on their studying and drinking some really good coffee at the same time.

   Clara raises one of her eyebrows in a faked expression of questioning. “Doing what?”

   “Come on,” Amy says. “He clearly likes you. Maybe not in _that_ way, yet, but he hugged you for god knows how long last night, as well as carried you into his bedroom where he let you sleep while I don’t think he himself slept at all.”

   “And that is exactly why I don’t want to see him again.”

   “You’re scared,” Amy says, her lips twitching with amusement.

   Clara hides her face behind her coffee cup. “Can you blame me?”

   “I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with it. I think it’s cute. Well, as long as you don’t actually let your fear keep you away from him.”

   “But what do I say to him?” Clara asks her. “How am I supposed to act around him?”

   “Well,” Amy says, “you could always …”

   “Those were rhetorical questions,” Clara interrupts her. “I don’t actually want your advice, because for some reason I’m pretty sure of that it involves stripping in front of him, which I’m not going to do anytime soon.”

   Amy winks at her. “That’s how I and Rory got together.”

   Clara buries her head in her hands, but she can’t keep herself from smiling behind them. She might not share Amy’s view on sex, but she sure as hell admires Amy for how … easy she makes seducing other people seem, and sometimes she even wishes that she were more like her.

   “I have to talk to him,” she says, the words muddled against her hands. “After our next lecture. Fuck, what am I going to say?”

   “You’ll come up with something,” Amy says, and Clara can tell that she’s smiling, even though she can’t see it.

   “Yeah,” Clara mumbles, before looking up again. “By the way, was it really his bed that I slept in?”

   “Next time, let’s hope he’s brave enough to accompany you.”

   “Oh my god, how am I even going to be able to look at him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: ......... there might be a kiss.


	8. Chapter 8

Clara’s late. She’s never late. She never is, but today Amy hasn’t woke her up and her alarm clock has decided not to work for some reason and now she’s overslept and is several minutes late for her history lecture and the Doctor is so going to think that she’s avoiding him if she doesn’t turn up for it.

   She quickly changes from her pyjamas into a sweater and one of her skirts, brushes her teeth and then runs across the campus. When she reaches the door to the lecture hall where the history class is being held, her cheeks are flushed and her breath ragged, and she leans against the door while trying to compose herself into a more respectable state.

   She can hear the Doctor’s voice through the door. The mere sound makes her feel all fucking tingly inside. She really shouldn’t be this attracted to him.

   She really, really, really shouldn’t, but there’s nothing she can do about the fact that she is.

   “I can do this,” she whispers to herself, before raising one of her hands to knock on the door.

   It doesn’t take many seconds before the Doctor opens the door. He slowly lets his gaze drift from her feet up to her face before, after what feels like an eternity, finally meeting her eyes. “Clara Oswald.”

   “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she starts. “I really …”

   The Doctor gives her one of his crooked smiles. “No need to apologise. You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

   “I …”

   “Well, are you going to come in?”

   “Yeah,” Clara mumbles, before reluctantly looking away from him and entering the room.

   “What the hell was that?” Amy greets her in a low whisper as soon as she’s sat down next to her in the back row. “The two of you totally just eye fucked each other in front of the entire class.”

   Clara ignores her comment. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

   “I tried. Twice. The first time you threw a shoe at me, and the second time you just told me to fuck off.”

   Clara closes her eyes and slowly shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

   “You look like a zombie, by the way,” Amy tells her. “Are you sure you haven’t died and been resurrected?”

   “Pretty sure.”

   “If I had known that you’re only here for the pleasure of talking to your dear friend Amelia, miss Oswald, I wouldn’t have let you in,” the Doctor interrupts their discussion by saying, making the entire class turn their heads towards Clara and Amy.

   Clara can feel herself blushing again. “I’m not. Sorry.”

   “Let’s concentrate on eighteenth century France, then, shall we?”

 

 

 

“Listen,” Clara says, hesitantly walking up to the Doctor’s desk after the lecture has ended and most of the other students have left the room, “I’m really sorry about … you know what.”     

   “You don’t seem to be able to say anything else than ‘sorry’ today.”

   She looks down at her feet. “Anyway ...”

   “Look, we can pretend that it never happened, if that’s what you want. We’ll just forget all about this weekend and never talk about it again.”

   “That’s not what I want," she finds herself saying, without having thought the words over.

   The lecture hall is completely empty except for the two of them now and the Doctor walks towards the door and shuts it without breaking his eye contact with her. “I don’t understand you. I have no idea of what you’re doing or what is going on in your head, so please, if you would be kind enough to enlighten me, that would be very much appreciated, because honestly, it’s just getting more and more frustrating.”

   “Trust me,” she says, shaking her head, “you don’t want to know.”

   The Doctor closes the distance between them until he’s standing so close to her that she almost can feel his chest slowly rising and sinking. “Do you have feelings for me, Clara?”

   “Of course not,” she manages to get herself to say, but the words barely come out as more than a whisper and even to her own ears it sounds like she’s about to start crying.

   “You know,” the Doctor says, “I’ve never met a worse liar than you.”

   “Okay,” Clara yells, “so what if I have? It’s not like I’m going to act on my feelings, not with you being a professor here and god knows how many years older than me and ...”

   “I’m not _that_ old,” he says, making her heart beat even faster than before. “I just celebrated my two thousandth birthday.”

   She can’t help but smile at that, but quickly hides her smile behind one of her hands, turns around and starts walking towards the door, eventually stopping right in front of it. “I’m not going to bother you anymore. I’m dropping out of this class and I’ll do my best to avoid running into you anywhere else.”

   The Doctor just watches her in silence from where he’s standing across the room, his eyes glimmering with amusement.

   “Think whatever you like about me,” Clara says, and this time, her voice doesn’t only make it sound like she’s on the edge of crying, but she actually feels like she is, “but please, could you not make fun of me in front of me?”

   “I’m not making fun of you,” the Doctor says, crossing the floor until he’s standing with his hands against the door so that she can’t move, her breaths getting more and more uneven.

   “No?” Clara whispers.

   “No,” he says before placing one of his thumbs under her chin, tilting her head up towards his and carefully letting his other fingers swipe across one of her cheeks.

   When his lips meet hers, she very nearly forgets how to breathe entirely. He tastes like coffee and toothpaste, and she instinctively reaches up on her tiptoes and places her arms around his neck, forgetting all about where they are and how wrong all of it is, because in that moment, it doesn’t feel anything but right.

   “I shouldn’t have done that,” is the first thing the Doctor says after reluctantly breaking away from the kiss, his voice shaky and slightly out of breath, but he still keeps his arms around Clara.

   “Definitely not,” Clara agrees, before reaching up to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	9. Chapter 9

For a couple of weeks, Clara lets herself forget all about reality and how she and the Doctor will never make it work and how fucked she is if anybody – well, anybody else than Amy – finds out about them. It’s easy to believe that anything’s possible if you want it to be badly enough.

   The Doctor doesn’t seem to want to discuss the situation, either, and Clara’s certainly not going to bring it up. Instead they steal kisses from each other as often as they can. After class. In his office when Clara visits him there to discuss one of her history essays with him. Outside of the coffee shop where Clara works. In a fucking storage room, where neither one of them can find the lamp switch and Clara’s sits on a pile of books on a table while she and the Doctor make out until her until her lips are so swollen and her hair so tousled that she’s sure of that everyone she passes on her way back home knows what she’s been doing.

   “We can’t keep on doing this,” the Doctor says after they’ve broken apart from yet another kiss, this time sitting in his car on the parking lot next to the coffee shop. It’s both dark and raining, so the chances of anybody seeing them there are pretty non-existent.

   Clara reluctantly lets go of him and leans back against the car seat. “I know.”

   “Would you like to go out on a proper date with me?” he asks her, avoiding her gaze by staring out of the window in front of him.

   “I thought you’d never ask.”

   “You could have asked me.”

   “True,” Clara admits, “but I just … it felt inappropriate for me to ask you out, as I’m … you know, your student.”

   The Doctor raises one of his eyebrows. “And do you think it feels more appropriate for me to ask you out?”

   “Well, you’re kind of in a position of power, so …”

   “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to ask you out,” he says. “I don’t want you to feel pressured into saying yes.”

   “I would love to go out on a date with you,” Clara tells him.

   “Really?”

   She can’t help but smile at how enthusiastic he sounds, but quickly hides her smile behind a hand. He’s usually quite reserved, surrounded by an air of nonchalance, and she always loves it when he lets her see the other sides of him. “Really.”

   “I was thinking we should go somewhere outside of the city,” the Doctor says, absentmindedly tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “I know that a professor can take a student out to dinner without it necessarily being too weird, but I’d rather avoid the possibility of anyone from here running into us just this once.”

   “Yeah,” Clara agrees, knowing very well that it will be hard enough for her to relax without having to worry about being caught together with the Doctor by any of her classmates or, god forbid, any of her other professors. “So when should I make room for this date in my calendar?”

   “I have to attend a conference this weekend,” the Doctor says, “but what about next Saturday? At six o’clock, maybe?”

   “Well, I’m sure Amy’s going to beg me to come with her to some party then, as she always does on Saturday nights, but I’m certainly not planning on accompanying her to any more parties after last time, so I suppose I should be free then.”

   “You don’t sound too thrilled. You aren’t already regretting agreeing to this, are you?”

   Clara looks out at the rain that’s pouring down over the parking lot, glittering in the glow of the streetlights. “Don’t be stupid. It’s just … next Saturday’s a long time away.”

   “Yeah,” the Doctor says, leaning across the car to cup his hands around Clara’s face, carefully stroking a thumb across her lower lip. “It is.”

   “Oh, shut up and kiss me,” Clara whispers, and in the next moment, they’re a mess of tangled limbs and ragged breaths again, the Doctor sucking on Clara’s lower lip in a way that makes her moan quietly.

   “Fuck,” she whispers when they’re interrupted by the ringtone to her mobile phone, repeating the word several more times when she sees the name on the screen, desperately trying to catch her breath before answering the call.

   “Clara?”

   “Yes,” Clara manages to get herself to say while nervously glancing towards the Doctor where he’s sitting next to her with his eyes closed, pulling his hands through his hair in the way he seems to do when he feels uncomfortable. “Hi.”

   “Are you busy? You sound kind of …”

   “No, no, it’s okay.”

   “I was just calling to ask you if you’ve booked the ticket for your train back here on Friday,” Jenny says, “and at what time we should pick you up from the station.”

   Clara buries her face in her hands. She’d completely forgotten about that she’s promised Vastra and Jenny to visit them this weekend, as it’s Jenny’s birthday on Sunday. “I haven’t, yet, but I’m going to sort it out as soon as I get back home …”

   “Oh,” Jenny says, and Clara realises her mistake a second too late, “so you _are_ in the middle of something.”

   “In the middle of studying, yes,” Clara says, stumbling all over her words. “In the library.”

   “I miss you,” Jenny says, without bothering to comment on how obvious it is that Clara’s lying. “I’m really looking forward to seeing you again.”

   “I miss you too.”

   “I should probably let you continue with your … studying now.”

   “I’ll message you the details for my train later,” Clara promises her.

   When she and Jenny have said their goodbyes and Clara has put down her phone again, she steals another glance at the Doctor, who is now looking at her, too.

   “You don’t have a boyfriend that you haven’t mentioned to me, do you?” he asks her, and even though he’s obviously being sarcastic, Clara can hear the real worry in his voice behind the sarcasm.

   “Several ones,” Clara tells him, stroking one of her fingertips across his chest. “And a couple of girlfriends, too. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

   He shrugs. “I would like to meet them. Maybe they could share some helpful tips on how to deal with you with me.”

   “I could invite them to our dinner next Saturday.”

   “No,” the Doctor says, his voice serious again, even though his eyes are still glinting. “Next Saturday I want you for myself.”


	10. Chapter 10

On Friday evening, Vastra and Jenny greet Clara with smiles and hugs at the train station back in her home town.

   “You look unusually happy,” Jenny says when she's put Clara’s suitcase in the trunk and they've sat down in the car. A CD with some band from the sixties is playing and the whole situation makes Clara feel like she’s five years old again and doesn’t have a single thing to worry about, but that isn’t the case, of course, and Jenny’s question reminds her of what she’s been turning over and over in her mind during the past few weeks.

   “It’s just … it’s good to see you again,” Clara tells them, and it isn’t a lie, but it isn’t the whole truth, either, which Vastra, being who she is, naturally picks up on.

   “Something has happened,” she says, stealing a glance at Clara over one of her shoulders before returning her attention to the road in front of them.

   “Yes,” Clara admits, her cheeks so warm that they feel like they’re burning.

   “You’ve met someone, haven’t you?” Jenny exclaims, clapping her hands together. “I knew something was up when I called you last time!”

   Clara buries her face in her hands. “Maybe …?”

   “You have to tell us all about this person!”

   “There’s not much to know,” Clara says, nervously playing with her phone in her hands.

   “Is it a girl? A boy? How did the two of you meet? What is he or she studying? Do you take any of the same classes? It is another student at the university, isn’t it?”

   Clara shakes her head. “ _He_ ’s already graduated. We met at the coffee shop where I work.”

   The smile on Jenny’s lips is so wide that Clara honestly feels bad for knowing what she knows about how they would never in a million years approve of the person she’s seeing. “How romantic.”

   “Exactly how old is he?” Vastra asks, much more reserved about it all than Jenny.

   Clara shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not the first question you ask somebody when you meet them, is it? Anyway, it’s not like it’s that serious. We barely know each other, yet.”

   “But you like him,” Vastra says, and it’s clearly not a question, but an observation.

   “Yes,” Clara admits, because what else is there to do?

 

 

The hours pass by in a blur and before Clara knows it, it’s Sunday afternoon and their house filled with guests for Jenny’s birthday party.

   Clara’s sitting in their garden together with Martha, her best friend from back when she was young, who’s now studying medicine and is pretty much the smartest person Clara knows.

   That’s when Clara’s phone rings. 

   She nervously glances at Martha, but she just tells her to take the call, so after a couple of seconds of hesitation she does. “Hello?”

   “Clara?” the Doctor says, and her heart skips a beat at his mention of her name. She loves the way he pronounces it, with his Scottish accent and his raspy voice.

   “That’s my name.”

   “Is this a bad time? Should I call you back later? Or … pretend that this never happened?”

   Clara smiles into her phone. ”No, no, it’s fine. I’m just a little surprised. I know I gave you my number, but I didn’t actually expect to hear from you.”

   “I shouldn’t have called, I know,” the Doctor says.

   “I didn’t mean it in that way. I’m glad that you called.”

   “Yeah?”

   “Yeah.”

   “I missed you,” the Doctor tells her, and it’s obvious that the confession makes him feel uncomfortable, but that only makes her appreciate it more.

   Before Clara’s had time to open her mouth to answer him, though, Vastra sticks her head through the door to the garden and waves at Clara and Martha to come inside as it’s time for Jenny to blow out the candles on her birthday cake.

   “Wait, can I call you back?” Clara asks the Doctor, repeatedly cursing at herself inside of her head.

   “Is that singing, in the background?” the Doctor asks her. “You’re at somebody’s birthday party?”

   Clara bites her lip, not sure if she should tell him the truth or not, as she doesn’t particularly want to remind him of how she’s not only his student, but also the daughter of his best friends from when he was young. On the other hand, she doesn't want to lie to him, either. “Jenny’s.”

   “Oh, shit, I’d completely forgotten about her birthday. Could you wish her a happy birthday from me?”

   “Well, I could, but it would be kind of hard to explain why I’ve been talking to you about it …”

   “Right,” the Doctor says. “Of course. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I suppose I’ll hang up now so that you can go back to the party.”

   “Yeah,” Clara says, leaning against the frame of the kitchen door, watching Jenny smile behind her cake while all of the guests are singing Happy Birthday To You to her. “And … I’ve missed you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: it's time for a chapter from the Doctor's point of view.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Again, thank you so much for your likes and especially for your comments. I literally can’t stop smiling when I read through them.
> 
> 2) Sooo … I wanted to give some insight into what exactly the Doctor is thinking, as he obviously shouldn’t feel the way he does about Clara any more than she should feel the way she does about him, much less act on his feelings in the way that he’s done, so I started experimenting with writing from his point of view, which eventually resulted in this chapter. I’m quite nervous about posting it, to be honest, as I’m much more comfortable with writing from Clara’s point of view, but hopefully you’ll like it. Okay. Enough rambling now. Here goes nothing.

The Doctor knows he shouldn’t think about Clara in the way he does, of course he does, and he desperately tries to convince himself of that he’s just confused, that his feelings are only born out of loneliness, because the mere thought of the alternative scares him senseless.

   He can’t control himself around her. He says things he never meant to say and realises what he’s done a moment too late. He lingers with his gaze on her for far longer than what is acceptable. He steals kisses from her and wishes for so much more.

   He knows he shouldn’t think about Clara in the way he does, but knowing he shouldn’t doesn’t mean that he doesn’t.

   He can only imagine how amused River would be by it if she still were alive. He wishes she was. He wishes for somebody, anybody to talk sense into him, but there’s nobody he can talk to about it, because what would he say? _I think I’m falling for one of my students._ They’d have him fired from the university immediately. And frankly, he should be.

   But Clara, oh Clara, he’s never met anyone like her before. When he’s with her he doesn’t reflect upon the age difference between them or how inappropriate his feelings for her are, he only thinks about how fucking _gorgeous_ she is, short and roundish with rosy cheeks and wide, dark eyes. It’s not just the way she looks, either, but the way she rambles when she’s nervous or excited, the way she seems wise beyond her years yet doesn't even seem to realise this, the way she doesn’t ever act like he’s anything but her equal, and the way she looks at him after their kisses, like he’s all she’s ever wanted.

   He should have told her to keep her word and drop out of his class when she told him that she would, because every lecture is torture with her sitting in the back row together with Amy. He knows that he can’t let himself be distracted by her, but she’s like a car accident, she’s like an exploding supernova, and he’s unable to look away from her no matter how much he wants to. He knows that it doesn’t physically hurt, but it feels like it does. God, it feels like it does.

   He’s read The Time Traveller’s Wife twice since Clara borrowed him the novel, and he knows he should give it back to her, but he can’t bring himself to. He likes flicking through the pages of it too much, can’t stop smiling at her comments in the margins of the pages and reading the passages she’s underlined over and over again until he can recite them from memory. Already on the first page of the novel he fell for the line “Why is love intensified by absence?”, and it remains his favourite quote from it, because, well, it’s just so fucking true, and it’s never felt more true than right now, when he’s sitting in the train on his way back home from the conference he’s attended over the weekend, unable to stop thinking about Clara.

   His attraction to her wasn’t immediate. He didn’t even notice her at first, or at least not like that. But then she passed out in front of his house and when he saw her lying there on the street, he panicked and forgot all about everything else except for how important it was to him that she stayed alive, for some reason he still can’t fathom. Her mascara was smudged and she smelled like she’d bathed in alcohol, but in that moment, when he allowed himself to _look_ at her for the first time, she was so beautiful that his heart couldn’t stop racing. And even though he really doesn’t like hugs, or any kind of physical affection, he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the entire world than right there with Clara in his arms when he held her.  

   He never does, when he’s close to her.

   “John?” Barbara Wright, another history professor from the university, who’s married to Ian Chesterfield or Chatterton or Chesserman or something like that, one of the science professors, is standing in the aisle of the train, smiling at the Doctor. “Why are you sitting here all alone? Please, join the rest of us in the next carriage, there are several free seats there.”

   “No, no, it’s alright,” the Doctor says, shutting the book close and hiding it in his bag. “I really need to get some work done. Essays to mark, lectures to prepare, you know.”

   “We’ve been working the whole weekend,” Barbara says, sitting down on the seat next to the Doctor. “Nobody’s going to blame you for taking an hour off.”

   “Thanks for caring,” he says. “Really. But I’m not much of a people person.”

   She keeps her gaze fixed on him. “Don’t you get lonely?”

   Does he get lonely? God, yes, but that’s something he’s as likely to admit to Barbara as his feelings for Clara.

   “Of course you do,” Barbara says when half a minute has passed by without him having answered her question, teasingly nudging one of his shoulders. “You can talk to me, you know, if you want to.”

   “Yeah,” the Doctor says, even though he knows that he never will, other than when they need to discuss their work with each other and when they run into each other in the corridor outside of their offices. He likes Barbara, that’s not the problem, but he wasn’t exaggerating when he told her that he isn’t much of a people person.

   Back when River was still alive, she would drag him to parties and dinners and all kinds of social events and force him to interact with all of the other guests by introducing him to them and then abandoning him. For a while, he almost started to feel comfortable with small talking to people, but then River died, and since then, he’s become even more withdrawn than he was before.

   “You’re just waiting for me to leave you alone again, aren’t you?” Barbara asks him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

   “No, of course not,” the Doctor immediately tries to reassure her, before sighing and hesitantly returning her smile. “Is it really that obvious?”

   “Yes.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “Don’t be,” Barbara says, still smiling, before rising from her seat and disappearing to the next carriage of the train.

   The Doctor fumbles for The Time Traveller’s Wife in his bag again, and when it’s finally time for him to get off the train, he’s finished the novel for the third time.


	12. Chapter 12

When Clara comes back home to her and Amy’s flat on Sunday evening, the first sound she hears is muffled sobbing. Still with her coat and her shoes on, she rushes to the living room, where she finds Amy sitting with her face buried against John’s chest and him with his arms around her.

   “Amy!” Clara exclaims, too worried to comment on John’s presence. “How are you? Has something happened?”

   “Her grandmother’s died,” John tells her.

   “I knew it was Jenny’s birthday this weekend and I didn’t want you to have to worry about me,” Amy mumbles, straightening her back and stroking a hand across her cheeks to wipe her tears away.

   “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Clara says, closing the distance between them and drawing Amy into a hug. “You should have called me. Really. Birthday or no birthday, you’re my best friend.”

   For a second, Amy’s face lights up at the words “best friend”, before she has to blink away new tears.

   “I know I could, and the two of you really look like you could do with some food, too,” Clara says while taking her coat off. “Do you want me to order pizza?”

   “Please do,” John says. “I’m starving.”

   “Me too,” Amy agrees.

  

 

“So, what have you been up to since I last saw you?” John asks Clara when their pizza has arrived. The three of them are eating it from the boxes with their hands, still sitting on the sofa.

   “Not much,” Clara says. “It’s all been pretty boring, really.”

   “She’s lying, isn’t she?” John asks Amy with his mouth full of pizza.

   “Totally,” Amy says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but still makes Clara certain of that she’s going to get through this. The fact that she’s friends with John again is calming, too, as Amy always seems to feel much better when he’s around.

   “I’m not lying!” Clara protests.

   “Tell me everything,” John says, swinging his legs up on the sofa and turning towards Clara, looking at her with a childlike anticipation in his eyes.

   Clara shakes her head. “Nothing’s happened.”

   “I can tell when you’re lying.”

   “Yeah, that’s not just you,” Amy says. “I’m pretty sure everyone can.”

   Clara glares at her.

   “You’re afraid of that he’s going to judge you, aren’t you?” Amy asks her, nibbling on a piece of pizza.

   “Well,” Clara says, “I know I would judge me if I were him.”

   “Now I’m really interested,” John says, still with his gaze focused on Clara. “What _have_ you been up to?”

   “She’s sleeping with our history teacher,” Amy tells him, a sad smile playing on her lips again.

   “I’m not …” Clara exclaims, before throwing one of the cushions from the sofa at Amy. “I’m not sleeping with him!”

   “Okay, okay, having secret make out sessions with him.”

   Clara can’t really argue with that.

   “Shit,” John says.

   “Yeah,” Clara agrees.

   “The one I saw you with?”

   Amy leans towards John. “You’ve seen her with him?”

   “I didn’t even know him back then!” Clara says. “Not really, anyway.”

   “Not like now, when the two of you are sleeping togeth …”

   “Shut up, Amy!”

   “I was only kidding, last time, when I asked you if you were having an affair with him, you know that, right?” John says. There’s something worried in his eyes, but at least he doesn’t sound like he’s judging her.

   Clara laughs, but it’s a humourless sound. “I know.”

   “I mean, you _looked_ close, but I didn’t think … there’s quite an age difference between the two of you, isn’t there?”

   “Trust me, I’m aware of it,” Clara says.

   “I just want you to … be careful.”

   Clara can feel her cheeks blushing, but she nods. “Can we please talk about something else, now?”

   “I’m serious,” John says. “I care about you, Clara. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that you’re finally getting over Nina, but with somebody like … him?”

   “I really, really like him, okay?” Clara sputters. “I know I shouldn’t, and I know that it’s never going to work out, but I do, and there’s nothing I can do about it. And don’t you _dare_ talk about him in that way. You don’t even know him.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “Yeah.”

   “She’s upset because she thinks people will blame it on daddy issues if they find out about it,” Amy says. “Because of her mothers, you know.”

   “I have never said anything like that to you,” Clara says, her voice cold as ice.

   “But it is what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

   “No! What I mean is, my feelings don’t have anything to do with daddy issues!”

   “Trust me, I know they don’t,” Amy says. “But you _are_ worried of that people will think they have.”

   Clara wearily shuts her eyes. “Can you please not … speak for me?”

   “So, what is he like?” John asks her. “Nice, I hope?”

   “He’s unlike anyone else I’ve ever met.”

   “In a good way?”

   “No, in a bad way! I’m going out with him because he’s the most obnoxious person I’ve ever met! What do you think?” Clara sighs, and then forces herself to collect herself, because she knows how wrong it is for her to take her frustration out on John, when nothing has got anything to do with him. “Of course in a good way.”

   “Trust me,” Amy says, “he’s exactly the kind of person I would have expected Clara to fall in love with. The quiet, sarcastic, interesting loner type?”

   “I’m not in love with him.”

   “Not yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Clara and the Doctor's first date.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still feel like crying every time I think about Death in Heaven, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a fluffy Christmas episode. Anyway, here’s another chapter of this fic. And yeah, I totally stole the punk rock past from Peter Capaldi, as it’s one of the things I love the most about him.

“Long time no see,” Clara greets the Doctor on Saturday, when he shows up outside of the door to her and Amy’s flat. Amy’s away for her grandmother’s funeral, so Clara has the flat all to herself for the weekend.

   The Doctor kisses her cheeks before slowly letting his eyes take in the sight of her. “You look lovely. Have you had a wash?”

   “Is that really the best compliment you could come up with?” Clara asks him, without being able to keep herself from laughing at how awkward he sounds.

   “Well, what would you like me to say?” he asks her, reaching out one of his arms to her.

   She puts her jacket on before taking it, still smiling. “You could say something about the dress.”

   “Didn’t even notice it,” the Doctor says, with something absent-minded in his voice, and at first she isn’t sure about whether he’s serious, but then she steals a glance at him, and the crooked smile on his lips tells her everything she needs to know.

   “You’re looking pretty sharp yourself,” she says, leaning her head against his arm while they walk down the stairs in the building. And he is. For once, he’s not wearing his magician outfit, but a normal grey coat and a dark green shirt that brings out the green in his eyes. She loves his eyes, the way they change colour from grey to blue to green to grey again. “So, where exactly are you taking me?”

   “Somewhere nice,” he says.

   “What a detailed description.”

   He laughs. “I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for you, now, would I?”

   “Oh, I’m in for a surprise? Are you going to blindfold me, as well, in the car, so that I can’t see where we’re going?”

   “Perhaps I should,” the Doctor says. The teasing tone in his voice makes Clara feel so turned on that she actually contemplates whether she should just press him up against one of the walls in the staircase and kiss him until they both forget all about that they were ever planning on leaving the building.

   But even though she would give almost anything to get to fuck him right there and right then, she really wants to know where he’s planning on taking her, so she just elbows him in one of his sides and then pushes the door to the building open. The air outside is so cold that their breaths are visible in it, but with him by her side, she doesn’t even notice it.

 

 

“No, you weren’t!” Clara exclaims, before burying her head in her hands so that he won’t see her laughing. “Oh my god, you actually were!”

   “I totally was,” the Doctor says, his cheeks blushing. “It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?”

   Clara shakes her head. “I think it’s cute.”

   Before she can get him to tell her more about his past as the singer in a punk rock band, though, he parks the car in a parking lot outside of a restaurant with a view over the sea. “We’re here.”

   Clara jumps out of the car, slowly pacing across the parking lot, looking out into the intense darkness that’s lit up by thousands of lights from the city across to them. “Is this where you take all of your romantic conquests?”

   “How did you know?” the Doctor says from where he’s suddenly standing next to her, having closed the distance between them without her even noticing it.

   “It’s beautiful,” Clara says, before finding herself shivering in the cold, which makes her nod towards the restaurant. “Should we go inside?”

   “Sounds like a good idea.”

   The restaurant is furnished with wooden tables and chairs painted in white, with fairy lights all over the ceiling and large windows. Clara and the Doctor are placed at a table for two next to one of the windows, and for a couple of minutes, they sink into their first awkward silence for the evening, while trying to distract themselves from it by reading through the menu and looking out over the sea.

   “It’s really nice,” Clara finally says, because she knows that if she doesn’t say anything, they’ll end up sitting there in silence for the rest of the night. “This place, I mean.”

   “It’s my favourite restaurant,” the Doctor admits, nervously playing with the serviette in front of him on the table. “I found it by mistake, while I was driving around in the middle of the night in an attempt to distract myself from how I wasn’t able to sleep, a couple of months after River …” He flinches. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

   “She was your wife,” Clara says. “I would be more worried if you never brought her up.”

   “Would you like to order?” a waitress interrupts their conversation by asking them. She’s smiling politely at them, but there’s undoubtedly something judging in her expression, and even though Clara doesn’t know what she’s thinking, she can guess, and it makes her feel close to nauseous.

   “The salmon pasta, please,” Clara says.

   “Same for me,” the Doctor says, with something annoyed in his voice that makes it sound like he hasn’t actually looked at the menu, but only wants the waitress to leave them alone as soon as possible. Clara supposes she isn’t the only one of them that’s picking up on how fake her smile looks.

   “So,” Clara says when the waitress has finally left them alone, uttering the first words that fall on her tongue to keep the situation from getting awkward again, “tell me more about your glorious punk rock days.”

   “Glorious?” the Doctor echoes with a throaty laugh.

   “Did you get to do any big shows? Did you have a lot of fans? Groupies?”

   “Thousands.”

   “Can I listen to your songs anywhere?”

   “We were rubbish, Clara,” he says, a smile playing on his lips. “Trust me, you really wouldn’t want to hear any of them. If you did, you’d turn around and run as far away from me as possible.”

   “Try me.”

   “I still have a scar from the earring I used to wear, though,” the Doctor says, reaching for one of his ears with one of his hands.

   Clara leans over the table to examine his ear, which, true to his word, is marked by a tiny scar. “Oh my god. Are you still into music?”

   “It’s probably my main interest, besides history, then,” he says. “How about you?”

   “I mostly just listen to what’s playing on the top forty radio stations,” Clara admits with an embarrassed laugh. “I would like to be the kind of person that’s into music, but I’m just … not. I took piano lessons back when I was young, for a couple of years, but it felt like I never got any better at playing the piano no matter how much time I spent on it, and so I quit.”

   “Any other interests, then?”

  “I read a lot, obviously,” Clara says. “Otherwise, school and work takes up most of my time. I would like to travel, but I’ve never really had the money. Hopefully in the future.”

   “I travelled a lot back when I was younger.”

   “Really?”

   “I’ve been almost everywhere,” the Doctor admits with a laugh.

   “What’s your favourite place you’ve been to?” Clara asks him, unconsciously leaning closer to him.

   “Paris, probably.”

   A smile spreads across Clara’s face. “That’s actually somewhere I’ve been. Class trip.”

   “And what did you think of it?”

   “It was beautiful.”

   “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”

   “Your food,” the waitress from before says, where she’s appeared next to their table again, holding two plates and a can of water in her hands.

   The salmon pasta looks delicious, with cheese, salad, mushrooms and tomatoes, and it tastes equally good. “I’ll have to give you a ten out of ten for choice of restaurant,” Clara mumbles in between her bites.

   “Rating this date, are you?” the Doctor says, with his gaze fixed at her over the table.

   “So that I’ll be able to decide whether you compare to all of my other numerous dates and are worthy of a second one.”

   “And do you think you will decide that I am?”

   “It’s definitely possible,” Clara says, a smile playing on her lips.


	14. Chapter 14

Clara can’t stop looking at the Doctor over the table. He’s beautiful. It’s not a word that should apply to a man who must be over fifty years old, but it’s the one that comes to her mind. With his tousled silver locks and his sharp facial features and the intense look in his eyes, he makes her feel as if she’s never laid her eyes upon anyone as beautiful before, and the more she learns about him, the more fascinated she gets.

   “Why do you like me?” she finds herself asking him, between two gulps of her water.

   A smile is tugging at the corners of the Doctor’s mouth. “Oh, so you’re suddenly assuming that I like you?”

   Clara rolls her eyes at him, but can’t help but return the smile. “Seeing as we’re here on a date, I would at least assume that you do, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.”

   “I like you a lot, Clara,” he says, avoiding her gaze by looking out over the sea outside of the restaurant.

   Her smile instinctively grows wider.

   “I don’t know why I do,” he finally says after several seconds of silence. “I’ve thought about it, of course, but … there are so many different things I like about you. No answer I could give you would make any sense on its own.” He looks up at her before breaking out into a low laugh. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

   “You tend to do that.”

   “Nervous habit.”

   “Are you scared?” Clara asks him.

   “Terrified.”

   “Me too.”

   “Well,” he says, “at least neither one of us has run away yet, so I suppose it could be worse.”

   “Yeah.”

   He looks down at his plate, which is almost empty at this point. “Why do _you_ like me, Clara?”

   Clara nudges one of his feet beneath the table. “Why _wouldn’t_ I like you?”

   “I’m serious,” he says.

   “So am I,” she says. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

   He hesitantly meets her gaze with his own. “That’s quite a statement.”

   She keeps her eyes fixed at him. “It’s true.”

   “Don’t take me wrong,” he says, “but you’re still awfully young. Shouldn’t you be doing, you know, young things, with young people?”

   “Are you trying to talk me out of … this?”

   The comment makes the Doctor smile, but it’s a sad smile, making his face look years older. “I just feel like it’s what I should be doing.”

   “Well, you saw what happened the last time I went to a party,” Clara says, and she can feel her cheeks blushing. “Not really my thing, to be honest. And anyway, fuck ‘should’. Neither one of us ‘should’ be sitting here in the first place. But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.” She doesn’t know where she gets the courage to utter the words from, but somehow, she does, maybe because they’ve already said so many words they shouldn’t have, maybe because it’s getting late and she’s getting impatient and she just wants him to get the thought of her as his student out of his head because that’s the last thing she wants him to see her as at this moment.  

   “I read the book,” the Doctor says, confusing her for a second before she realises which book he’s talking about. The Time Traveller’s Wife. Of course. “Several times.”

   Clara suddenly finds herself ridiculously flustered. “So you liked it, then?”

   “It’s probably the best book I’ve read,” he admits. “But on the other hand, you should keep in mind that I almost never read.”

   “Ha, ha,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm, but she’s so relieved that he liked it that her sarcasm’s half-hearted at best.

   “’Why is love intensified by absence?’” he says, somehow making the quote sound completely different from the one Clara’s read dozens of times, but she knows that she’s never going to be able to read it again without hearing it in his Scottish accent in her head. “The quote’s been stuck in my head since I first read it.”

   “It is a beautiful quote,” Clara agrees, nervously fumbling with the rings on her fingers.

   “Would you like to order dessert?” the waitress from before interrupts their conversation by asking them, from where she’s appeared next to their table again.

   “Would we?” the Doctor asks Clara, without looking up at the waitress.

   “I think I’m fine, thanks,” Clara says.

   “In that case, could we just have the bill, please?”

   “Certainly,” the waitress says.

   “I don’t have the book with me, but I’ll give it back to you as soon as possible,” the Doctor says after she’s left their table.

   “You don’t have to,” Clara finds herself telling him. “You can keep it. If you want to. Like I said, I have several copies of it.”

   “But it’s filled with your notes.”

   “If you don’t want it, just say so.”

   “I do,” he says. “I do want it.”

   “Then keep it.”

   A smile spreads across his lips. “Thank you.”

   Clara looks down at the table, as if not looking at him would hide her own smile from him.


	15. Chapter 15

The Doctor parks his car outside of Amy and Clara’s flat and then they just sit there in silence, pretending to listen to the monotone pop song that’s playing on the radio, without looking at each other.

   “So … I really enjoyed tonight,” the Doctor finally says, fumbling with the keys to the car.

   Clara reaches for the keys so that he’ll stop looking at them and meet her gaze instead. “Look, I don’t know how to say this, but … oh, fuck it, whatever. Do you want to come inside with me?”

   The Doctor nervously pulls a hand through his grey locks. “Do you want me to?”

   Clara rolls her eyes at him. “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t, would I?”

   “Okay,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper.

   “Okay?”

   “Okay,” he repeats, a little louder this time, before opening the door to the car. Then he takes a deep breath and turns towards Clara again. “I don’t know if you remember anything from the night back at my house, but what I said back then wasn’t a lie. I’m really not that comfortable with physical contact.”

   Clara carefully grabs his hands and interlaces her fingers with his. They’re cold and tremble a little, but he doesn’t withdraw them from her. “I would be lying if I said that I don’t want to … you know, but I would never force you into anything that you aren’t comfortable with. We can just drink tea. Watch television. I don’t know. Look up your band on YouTube?”

   “Ha, ha,” the Doctor mutters, but she can see the relief in his eyes.

   “So, what do you say?”

   “I would love a cup of tea.”

   Clara lets his hands go and then smiles at him and opens the door to the car on her own side, but before she’s jumped out of it, the Doctor opens his mouth again.

   “Wait, Clara.”

   She turns her head towards him again.

   “It’s not …” he begins, stumbling all over his words. “I mean, I’m not asexual. I do want to, just … not yet.”

   “Do you want to talk about it?” Clara asks him, because she can feel that there’s more to it than what he’s telling her.

   The Doctor shakes his head.

   “Okay.”

 

 

It feels unreal, watching him take his coat off in the hallway of her and Amy’s flat, unlacing his boots and then looking around as if he hadn’t noticed his surroundings before. “It’s nice, your flat.”

   Clara shrugs. “Nowhere near as nice as your house.”

   He follows her to the kitchen and hesitantly settles down at the table. “You have a lot of cookbooks. Do you cook?”

   “I’m rubbish at cooking,” Clara admits with a laugh from where she’s turning on the kettle. “But I do like it.”

   “What’s your favourite recipe?” the Doctor asks her, obviously only fumbling for any words at all to utter in order to avoid an awkward silence.

   Clara sits down in front of him at the table and leans her elbows against it. “I love making soufflés. Maybe because I’ve still never managed to make a single one that has been edible. I like to think that it’s because of the recipes that I’ve used, though. A soufflé isn’t a soufflé, a soufflé is the recipe. That’s my motto.”

   “Now you’re the one who’s rambling,” the Doctor says, a smile playing on his lips.

   “I know,” Clara says, unable to keep from smiling herself. “I’m sorry. It’s just … this whole situation.”

   The Doctor nods. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

   “It’s really weird,” Clara agrees. “But in a good way.”

   “Yeah.”

   Clara gets up to pour the boiling water from the kettle into two cups with teabags in them. “Would you like milk? Sugar?”

   “Milk and no sugar, please.”

   “I’ll make sure to remember that.”

   When Clara steals a glance at the Doctor over one of her shoulders, he’s wearing an absent-minded smile on his lips, and the mere sight of him sitting there makes her heart skip a beat. He’s there, in her apartment, he’s actually there, and there’s no denying it anymore, she’s so in love with him it hurts.

 

 

They drink their tea in silence and then end up in front of the television, watching a science fiction movie. At first they sit on different sides of the sofa, but as the movie goes on, they instinctively move closer towards each other, until Clara’s leaning her head against one of the Doctor’s shoulders and he’s wrapped one of his arms around her.

   “Do you believe in aliens?” she asks him while the end credits of the movie are rolling, too tired to switch off the television.

   “It’s a big universe,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice.

   “Yeah,” Clara mumbles.

   “You sound like you’re falling asleep.”

   Clara laughs. “I am.”

   “Do you want me to leave?”

   She turns her face up towards him. “I would love for you to stay, if you want to.”

   He bites his lip. “I …”

   “You can borrow my toothbrush and I’ll make you breakfast in the morning and it will all be like a pyjama party.”

   He raises one of his eyebrows. “You’ll make me breakfast?”

   “Coffee and scrambled eggs on toast,” Clara promises him.

   “Well, you can’t refuse an offer like that, can you?”

   Clara smiles and sleepily kisses him before getting up from the sofa.

   Her cheeks are flushed in the bathroom mirror and she can’t stop smiling while brushing her teeth and changing into her nightie. It’s short and lacy and not exactly what one would wear to a pyjama party, but she looks good in it and she knows it.

   “You can have the bathroom now,” she tells the Doctor from the door to the living room, leaning against its frame. “The pink toothbrush is mine.”

   “Thanks,” he mumbles, clearly avoiding looking at her.

   Clara snuggles down into her bed while doing her best not to think about the Doctor. But then he’s standing in the doorway to her bedroom, only dressed in a pair of black boxers, and it’s impossible not to think about him.

   “Hi,” Clara whispers.

   “Hi,” he echoes.

   “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

   “I know,” he says, his voice hoarse, before he crosses the floor and sits down on one of the sides of her bed. “I’m sorry I’m so fucked up.”

   Clara reaches for one of his hands. “You’re here. That’s all that matters to me.”

   He hesitantly lies down next to her, their hands still intertwined. “What did I do to deserve you?”

   “Love isn’t something you have to deserve,” Clara mumbles, curling up in his arms.

   “You’re a wise one, aren’t you?” he whispers back, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

   “Hush now, I need to get some sleep.”

   “Yeah.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stop smiling while writing this chapter, haha. I hope you like it. xx

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

   Clara flutters her eyelids open and looks up at the Doctor where he’s standing next to the bed with two cups of tea in his hands. He’s already dressed, wearing the same dark green shirt as yesterday. “I thought I made it clear that I was going to make you breakfast,” she mumbles, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

   “Sorry,” the Doctor says, without sounding like he means it. “I’m just never able to sleep for that long and I got bored.”

   Clara sits up among the sheets and takes the cup he reaches her. The tea is so full of sugar, though, that she puts it down on the bedside table already after taking her first gulp of it. “What _is_ this?”

   “Tea,” the Doctor says, settling down next to her on the bed.

   “With fifteen lumps of sugar in it?”

   He blushes in the most adorable way. “I must have given you my cup.”

   Clara raises one of her eyebrows. “You said you took your tea without sugar.”

   He gives her the other cup. “I do. Sometimes.”

   She takes a gulp from the other cup, and sure enough, the tea in it tastes much better.

   The Doctor reaches for the cup on the bedside table, careful not to touch Clara as he leans over her. “I made toast and scrambled eggs, as well. In the kitchen. And pancakes. I might have made pancakes, too.”

   “Doctor …”

   “I’m sorry,” he says, more sincerely, this time. “I needed to do something to distract myself from my thoughts.”

   “Thank you,” Clara says, reaching over to press her lips against his. He tastes like sugar and sleep, and she probably should have brushed her teeth before, but it’s morning, and he’s still here in her bed, and she can’t help herself. “For staying the night.”

   He places a hand on one of her cheeks, still holding the cup of tea with his other hand while tentatively kissing her back. The kiss is different from any of their other kisses - slower, deeper, less desperate - but it makes Clara feel every bit as light headed.

   “You should get dressed,” he finally says, after reluctantly breaking away from her.

   Clara looks down at her nightie with a crooked smile on her lips. “Why, I like this.”

   The Doctor doesn’t look amused. “Clara.”

   She laughs, leans against one of his shoulders and takes another gulp of her tea. “At least let me drink my tea before.”

   “You’re impossible,” he whispers, absentmindedly tapping his fingertips against one of her bare thighs, without looking at her.

   “I know,” she says.

 

 

They eat their toast with scrambled eggs and pancakes with syrup in silence, the Doctor with his face buried in a book that he’s found in the kitchen, Clara with her gaze on him. He looks gorgeously dishevelled, with tousled hair and his chin covered in grey stubble.

   When the doorbell rings, they exchange worried glances.

   “Are you expecting somebody?” the Doctor asks her, putting the book to the side.

   Clara shakes her head while rising from her chair. “Wait here. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll just check who it is.”

   “Well, there’s not really anywhere for me to go, is there?” the Doctor mumbles under his breath.

   Clara’s too nervous to come up with a sarcastic reply to his comment.

   Outside of the door she finds Amy, with a tired look in her eyes and a suitcase in a hand, and she’s so relieved that she feels like she can breathe out for the first time in several seconds. “Amy. Thank god.”

   Amy raises an eyebrow. “Were you expecting somebody else?”

   “No, I just … why are you here, anyway? Weren’t you supposed to stay in Scotland until tomorrow?”

   “I was, yeah,” Amy says, “but I really don’t get along with most of my relatives and I couldn’t stand another day there, so I took the first train back this morning.”

   “And the funeral …?”

   “Took place yesterday.”

   “I’m so sorry,” Clara says, drawing her into a hug.

   “Yeah,” Amy mumbles against Clara’s hair, as she’s more than a head taller than her. “Is that pancakes I smell?”

   Clara grimaces. “I should probably warn you, I’m not alone in the flat.”

   “Clara!” Amy exclaims, taking a couple of steps back from her. “It’s not … who I think it is, is it?”

   Clara can’t force herself to look at her. “Depends on who you think it is, doesn’t it?”

   “Fuck, it _is_ him.”

   “We didn’t …” Clara begins, but she knows Amy won’t believe her, whatever she says, so she doesn’t bother with finishing the sentence. “Yes. It’s him.”

   “Fuck,” Amy says again, apparently lost for any other words.

   “I know.”

   “Well, this is awkward.”

   Clara sighs. “Just come in. And don’t … don’t say anything inappropriate to him.”

   Amy rolls her eyes at her while taking her shoes off. “Thanks for the reminder, I was just going to go in there and ask him about whether he really thinks it’s a good idea, sleeping with one of his students.”

   “Amy, I’m serious.”

   “So am I,” she says, before meeting Clara’s gaze. “I’m not going to say anything. I promise.”

   Clara reluctantly steps to the side so that Amy can walk past her towards the kitchen, takes a deep breath and then follows her.

   “Miss Pond,” the Doctor says, nervously fumbling with a serviette.

   “I know I should have called before I came home early,” Amy says. “I just didn’t expect Clara to have someone over. She never has. Not since Nina.”

   “Amy!” Clara hisses.

   The Doctor steals a glance at Clara with an eyebrow raised, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead he makes a gesture towards the stove. “There are still some pancakes left, if you want them.”

   “How did you know?” Amy says, reaching for a plate from one of the cupboards in the kitchen. “I’m starving. The food on trains is absolutely disgusting.”

   “I’m sorry about your grandmother.”

   Amy gives the Doctor a sad smile over a shoulder.

   “I think I’m going to leave now,” the Doctor says, collecting the small pieces that he’s torn the serviette into and rising from the table. “If that’s okay with you.” The sentence is directed at the both of them, but he’s looking straight at Clara.

   “When will I see you again?” Clara asks him, still standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her hands in the pockets of her dress. “Outside of class, I mean.”

   “Next weekend?” the Doctor suggests.

   “I’ll text you the details.”

   “Oh, so you’re the one in charge of the next date?”

   Clara smiles. “I’m the boss.”

   “Yes, ma’am,” the Doctor says, reaching down to kiss her on the cheek before telling Amy goodbye and leaving the flat.

   “So, when’s the wedding?” Amy asks Clara, sitting down at the table with the last of the pancakes, a smile on her lips.

   “Don’t,” Clara warns her, but she’s still smiling, too.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas <3

The history lecture on Monday is pure torture for Clara. She barely registers any of the words the Doctor utters and seems to be unable to take her eyes off him for long enough to take any notes. He’s wearing a jumper with holes in it under a black hoodie, an outfit so stupid that nobody should look good in it, but of course he pulls it off. Clara can’t stop remembering the feeling of his arms around her and his body pressed against hers, and it’s nearly enough to drive her insane, but somehow, she makes it through the whole lecture.

   She didn’t mean to stay there, afterwards, but she tells Amy to leave without her and then takes a ridiculous amount of time to gather her pens and course books, until the room is empty except for her and the Doctor and the undeniable tension between the two of them.

   “Clara,” he finally says, rolling the r in her name, looking straight at her for the first time since she stepped into the lecture hall.

   “I know I should go,” she says. “I just …”

   “Yeah,” he says, and then turns his gaze down towards his desk before he opens his mouth again. “I’ve missed you.”

   Clara closes the distance between them and jumps up to sit on the desk. “Do you want to have coffee with me tonight? At eight o’clock?”

   The Doctor glances towards the door, which is still open. “I thought we weren’t going on another date until next weekend.”

   “We don’t have to call it a date.”

   “Where should I meet you?” he asks her, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

   “You know the coffee shop next to the library?”

   “Isn’t it usually quite crowded?”

   “The ground floor is, but there’s an attic which most people don’t know about. I often go there to study.”

   “Okay,” the Doctor says.

   “Okay,” Clara echoes, and then jumps down from his desk and smiles at him over a shoulder before leaving the room.

 

 

John comes over to Amy and Clara’s flat, that evening, fifteen minutes before Clara’s supposed to meet the Doctor at the coffee shop. She’s putting on her red lipstick in front of the mirror in the hallway when he knocks at the door, and she greets him with a smile. “I’ve missed having you around here every day.”

   “You look nice,” he says, gesturing towards her face. “Going somewhere?”

   “I’m meeting the Doctor for coffee,” Clara admits, sitting down on the floor to put her shoes on.

   “Doctor who?”

   “The history professor.”

   “What, that’s his name?”

   “It’s what everyone calls him,” Clara says with a shrug.

   “John? Is that you?” Amy shouts from the living room.

   “Yeah,” he shouts back, before returning his attention to Clara. “Well, have fun on your date.”

   “It’s not … it’s not a date,” Clara says, a smile playing on her lips. “But yes. I will.”

   Amy sticks her head out from the living room and waves at the two of them. “Hi, John. And Clara, have fun on your date.”

   “It’s not a date,” John says, smiling at Clara. “She’s only meeting him for coffee.”

   Clara nudges him in the side and then picks up her purse. “Exactly. Bye.”

 

 

The Doctor’s already standing outside of the coffee shop when Clara reaches it, even though she’s five minutes early. He kisses her cheeks and then holds the door open for her. They don’t say anything to each other before they’ve ordered their coffee and settled down at a table in the attic. Only one of the other tables there is taken, by a student buried in a pile of books. The Doctor doesn’t seem too worried about him, so Clara supposes it isn’t one of his other students.

   “How was your day?” the Doctor asks Clara, stirring his coffee.

   “Boring,” she admits. “I couldn’t wait to see you.”

   “I hope I didn’t distract you from your work,” he says, his tone teasing.

   “Thankfully pouring coffee for people doesn’t require that much thinking. I have to write an essay for my course about science fiction literature, though, which I’ve been procrastinating on for weeks.”

   “I love science fiction,” the Doctor mumbles.

   “Really?”

   “I was absolutely obsessed with Star Trek back when I was younger,” he admits with a laugh.

   Clara takes another gulp of coffee. Her lipstick has left a mark on her cup. “I’ve watched a couple of episodes, but I’ve never been able to get into the show. Maybe I should give it another chance.”

   “Start with The Next Generation.”

   “I’ll try to remember that.”

   “So,” the Doctor says after a short silence, “Nina, I suppose that was your girlfriend?”

   Clara grimaces. “You picked up on that, did you?”

   “I’m just curious,” he says. “You don’t have to tell me anything about it if you don’t want to.”

   “Well, yeah, she was my girlfriend,” Clara says. “But it’s been a long time since she broke up with me.”

   “You’re still not over it, though,” the Doctor says, keeping his eyes fixed on her.

   “I am,” Clara says, but even though she wants it to be the truth, she isn’t sure about that it is. It still hurts, thinking about Nina, and sometimes she still cries to love songs that remind her of her. “It’s just … she was my first love, you know? I expected us to last forever. So, it sucked, when we didn’t.”

   “It always sucks,” the Doctor says.

   “Yeah, I suppose so.”

 

 

Somehow, Clara ends up in the Doctor’s house, after they’ve finished their coffee and tried to say goodbye to each other. He leans down to kiss her in the hallway, and she wraps her arms around his neck while prying his mouth open with her tongue. They’re both still wearing their coats and their shoes, but Clara can’t seem to make herself care about it, not with his lips pressed against hers.

   “Stay,” he whispers, when they finally break apart to catch their breath. His pupils are blown and his lips stained red by her lipstick. “I don’t want to sleep alone again.”

   She nods, still a little dizzy after the kiss. “I would love to.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So …… Last Christmas was everything I could ever have wished for and more. Thank you, Moffat. Here's a short but really fluffy chapter.

Waking up in the Doctor’s house is distinctively different, this time, now that he’s lying next to her in the bed. He’s still asleep, his mouth slightly open, his bare chest slowly sinking and rising. Clara’s heart hurts at the sight of him.

   She kisses him on the forehead and then swings her legs over the edge of the bed and walks down the stairs to the kitchen, the floor cold against her feet. The Doctor tried to convince her to wear one of his old t-shirts for the sake of decency, but she won the fight, and so she’s only wearing her underwear.

   The time on the clock in the kitchen is a quarter to seven, and Clara’s first lecture starts in an hour and forty-five minutes. She isn’t sure about how she’s going to make it through it. It was a terrible idea, falling in love with somebody when she should be spending her energy on essays and exams.

   She puts four pieces of bread in the toaster and makes two cups of hot chocolate while she’s waiting for them to pop up. It feels a little strange, walking around in the Doctor’s kitchen, but seeing as he made her breakfast back at her flat, she hopes that he won’t have anything against her making him breakfast here, even though she hasn’t got the time to make him anything as fancy as pancakes.

   The toaster goes off and she picks up the pieces of toast and spreads strawberry jam on them before balancing the plate with them and the cups with hot chocolate in her hands while she walks up to the Doctor’s bedroom again. His alarm clock is set on waking him up at seven o’clock, but she turns it off and then sits down in the bed and tickles him between two of his rib bones. “Morning, you.”

   The Doctor slowly opens his eyes and then squints at Clara. “What’s the time?”

   “Almost seven,” she says. “Now wake up, I brought you breakfast in bed.”

   “I never sleep this long,” the Doctor mumbles, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “What have you done, put sleeping pills in my coffee?”

   Clara rolls her eyes at him. “You’re human, you need to sleep sometimes.”

   “I suppose so,” he admits, before reaching for one of the cups of hot chocolate and taking a sip from it. “You put too little cocoa powder in it.”

   “Of course I did,” Clara mutters, but she’s smiling. “I suppose I should have put five lumps of sugar in it, as well?”

   “Preferably,” he says, his tone teasing.

   “I sincerely hope you aren’t going to complain about the toast, as well, because in that case, you can make your own breakfasts from now on.”

   He laughs. “The toast is fine.”

   “You’re just saying that because you’re scared of admitting that it isn’t, now, aren’t you?”

   “No, it is, it is,” he quickly protests. “I love strawberry jam. It’s my favourite.”

   Clara loves learning new things about him, no matter how insignificant or meaningless they are. In so many ways, he’s still a complete stranger to her, and she knows that the only possible way of getting to know him is to collect all of the glimpses into his life that he gives her and do her best to puzzle them together.

   “I could go down and get you the jar with cocoa powder,” she says.

   “No,” he says, reaching for one of her hands. “Stay here.”

   “Okay.”

   “You’re beautiful, right now, do you know that?” he says, placing his other hand on her cheek.

   “My hair is a mess and I’m not wearing any makeup,” Clara says. “Sorry, but you’re a terrible judge. Maybe blind.”

   “Yeah,” he mumbles, “but you are, you’re absolutely beautiful.”

   Clara reaches for a pillow to hide her face behind. “Shut up, you’re making me embarrassed, now.”

   “I probably should, shouldn’t I?” he agrees with a laugh.

   “Yeah, you should, and you should also drink your hot chocolate and then get up and get ready for work.”

   “And will you come back here, tonight?” the Doctor asks her.

   “I probably couldn’t stay away even if I wanted to,” Clara admits.

   The Doctor hides the smile on his lips behind his cup.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter from the Doctor’s point of view. I hope you like it.

 

The Doctor is addicted to Clara. He’s addicted to the feeling of her skin against his, the sight of her among his sheets, the way she regards him when she thinks he isn’t looking at her, her voice and her big, dark eyes and the smell of her hair and _her_ , just her. He’s got essays to mark and lectures to prepare and meetings to attend, but none of that seems to matter in comparison to her. He can’t seem to remember any of the dates that he should be able to rattle off in his sleep and he can hear his students talk about how distracted he seems behind his back.

   “Are you okay?” Barbara asks him on Friday, when they’re eating lunch together in one of the parks on campus, tuna salad and sandwiches that remind the Doctor of picnics in the summer. “You seem a little …”

   “Tired,” he lies. “I’m just tired.”

   “Having trouble sleeping?”

   He shrugs.

   “If you’re feeling lonely, you know that you're always welcome over to my and Ian’s house,” Barbara says, smiling at him over her sandwich.

   “I’m not,” he says. “Lonely, that is.” It’s another lie, of course. Perhaps he should feel less lonely with Clara there, and to a certain extent, he does, but at the same time, having to keep her a secret makes him feel lonelier than ever.

   “You haven’t met someone, have you?” Barbara asks him, as scarily intuitive as ever.

   The Doctor turns his gaze down towards his salad. “Not really.”

   Barbara almost drops her sandwich. “You have!”

   “It’s complicated,” the Doctor says.

   But it isn’t complicated. When Clara’s there, everything feels almost ridiculously simple. He doesn’t stop to reflect upon any of the reasons why it could never work out, he just falls deeper and deeper in … something with her. Love, he supposes it’s called. The mere word terrifies him.

   “Do I know this person?” Barbara asks him, a smile playing on her lips.

   “It's unlikely.”

   “Tell me about her. Or him.”

   “She’s beautiful.”

   The words fall off the Doctor’s tongue before he’s able to stop himself from uttering them. Usually he’s good at keeping secrets, but it’s harder when you don’t really want to keep them. Well, he certainly doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s sleeping with – in the most innocent sense of the phrase, so far, but still – one of his students. But he doesn’t want to keep _Clara_ a secret, and for far from the first time, he desperately wishes that he’d fallen in not-love with anyone else but her.

   (Though of course he doesn’t, not really, because he doesn’t want anybody else, he only wants her.)

   “Does she know how you feel about her?”

   “Yes,” the Doctor admits after a short silence.

   Barbara continues smiling. “And …?”

   “And it’s none of your business,” the Doctor says, but a smile is tugging at the corners of his own mouth.

 

 

He picks her up from the coffee shop with his car, that evening. She’s wearing a tattered pair of jeans and her hair in a messy bun and he wants nothing more than to kiss her, so he does, cupping her face with his hands. She tastes like coffee and second chances.

   “I’ve missed you,” Clara whispers after breaking apart from the kiss, leaning her forehead against his. Her breaths tickle his lips and in that moment he feels so many different and wonderful things for her that it hurts.

   “I thought about coming by for … coffee,” the Doctor says, “but I decided not to disturb you.”

   “Probably a good idea,” Clara admits, “as god knows I’m having enough trouble focusing on work as it is.”

   “You’re not working this weekend, are you?”

   “No, I’m all yours.”

   Two days. Two whole days and two whole nights together with her without any distractions. He can’t decide whether the thought excites or terrifies him. Both, probably. As is the case with everything to do with Clara.

   “Though I should probably drop by my own flat tonight,” Clara says after a moment of reflection. “Amy’s left me a lot of messages. She’s threatening me with advertising for a new flatmate. She won’t, of course, as long as I pay the rent, but I don’t want her to have to worry about me, so …”

   “Do you want me to drive you there now?”

   “It shouldn’t take more than an hour at most,” Clara says.

   “Clara,” the Doctor says, absentmindedly playing with a couple of strands of her hair, “you have your own life, I get that, and you really shouldn’t ignore any of your friends because of me.”

   “I know,” she says with a quiet laugh. “I know, I know. It’s just … I’ve spent over ten hours without you, and now that you’re here, I … I don’t want to leave you, again.”

   “Two days,” the Doctor says. “Go talk to Amy, now, and then we’ll have two days together.”

   “Yeah,” Clara mumbles, drawing him closer to her and pressing her lips against his again. “Soon.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally published a draft of this chapter earlier, sorry about that, but here it is. Another ridiculously fluffy chapter, haha, but we’ll get to the angst soon. xx

Amy throws herself at Clara the minute she steps in through the door to their flat. “Where the _hell_ have you been, Clara? No, don’t answer that, I know where you’ve been, but oh my god, this is insane. Are you spending the weekend at his house, as well?”

   “Actually, I was thinking about taking him to my family’s summer cottage,” Clara says, wrestling herself free from Amy’s hug. “But, yes, I’m spending the weekend with him.”

   “And …?”                                                                                  

   Clara regards her suspiciously. “And what?”

  “Well, give me details,” Amy says. “What is going on between the two of you? Are you having sex yet?”

   Clara elbows her in the side on her way to the kitchen. “None of your business.”

   “You can’t blame me for being curious,” Amy says, jumping up on one of the counters in the kitchen. “I see the way you look at each other, in class, you know. Like there’s no one else there.”

   Clara rolls her eyes at her while putting two pieces of bread in the toaster. “You already know I like him. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.”

   Amy shakes her head. “It’s just … it’s fascinating. I mean, the two of you … it shouldn’t work, you know? But when I look at you, I can’t imagine it _not_ working. So, what did you say about your summer cottage?”

   “I told him I would plan a date for us tomorrow,” Clara says, “and I stayed up thinking about it, a couple of nights. I didn’t want to take him somewhere in this city, for obvious reasons. And I don’t really know of any nice places outside of the city. So then I started thinking about the cottage. My parents never visit it during this time of the year and … I think he would like it. I know it’s four hours away, but we have the time, especially if we stay there over the night.”

   Amy throws her hands up in the air. “Are you sure this is a good idea? What if the Doctor’s a serial killer and has just been waiting for an opportunity like this? What if another serial killer finds the two of you alone there?”

   Clara grimaces at her from the table, which makes a grin spread across Amy’s face.

   “To be honest, I think it sounds perfect,” Amy says.

   The toaster goes off and Clara gets up to get her pieces of bread and spread peanut butter and raspberry jam over them as well as pour herself a glass of orange juice. “I hope so.”

   “And how’s the rest of your life going?” Amy asks her.

   “God, I have no idea of when I’m going to get any of my homework done,” Clara sighs. “My grades are so fucked.”

   “On Sunday, you come back here,” Amy says. “And then we’re going to pull an all-nighter and you’re going to finish every single one of your essays. If you fail to turn up, I’ll hunt you down at his house, and it won’t be pretty.”

   Clara can’t help but laugh. “Are you threatening me?”

   “Yes,” Amy says, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “But it’s for your own good.”

   “I know,” Clara says. “I just … it’s hard to focus on anything else right now, you know?”

   Amy laughs. “Miss Clara Oswald in love, now this is something everyone should get to witness.”

   “I’m not in love,” Clara protests, because admitting that you’re in love with somebody to yourself and admitting it to somebody else are two entirely different things.

   “Yeah, yeah,” Amy says, and Clara knows that she doesn’t believe her for a second, but, well, she can’t blame her.

   “And what about you and John?” Clara says. “You seem to be good friends again.”

   Amy shrugs. “He’s a far better friend than I deserve.”

   “Have you ever thought about …”

   “What, are you trying to set us up or something?”

   Clara takes a sip of her orange juice. “Well, it _is_ possible to have a relationship with somebody you actually like, you know.”

   “Don’t,” Amy says, her voice cold. “Me and him, it’s complicated. It’s always been that way. It always will be.”

   “And have you ever … thought about it?” Clara asks, too curious to resist.

   “To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up living together and having kids together and still never bothered to define our relationship,” Amy admits, swinging her legs back and forth through the air. “It’s just the way things are with him.”

   “Do you love him?”

   “He’s my best friend,” Amy says. “Of course I do.”

   “That wasn’t what I meant.”

   “I don’t think it matters either way.”

   “Are you okay?” Clara asks her in between two bites of her sandwich, changing the subject as she can feel Amy getting more uncomfortable by the second. “I feel like the worst friend ever, having been so absent after your gran’s death.”

   “You spend too much time worrying about me, Clara.”

   “I know,” Clara says, a smile on her lips, “but it’s just because I care about you.”

   “Having John around again helps,” Amy says, fiddling with her bracelet. “I’ve missed him even more than I thought.”

   “And you’re fine with me spending the weekend with the Doctor? Or do you want me to stay here and keep you company?”

   “Stay here and sulk about how you’d much rather be with him, you mean,” Amy says with a teasing smile. “Trust me, I don’t want to have to deal with that. You go to the cottage with him. Have fun.”

   Clara gets up to put her empty glass in the sink and steals a hug from Amy on her way out from the kitchen. “I’ll make it up to you, sometime. I’ll buy you dinner. Make a soufflé.”

   “Looking forward to it.”

 

 

After packing a bag with more clothes and a couple of books, Clara hugs Amy goodbye and then leaves the flat. The air is bitingly cold, but it’s beautiful outside, the ground covered in crisp yellow and orange leaves. Clara decides to take a detour to the coffee shop half a kilometre away from the flat in order to buy a pumpkin spice latte and sips on it on the way to the Doctor’s house. It tastes like autumn and the cup keeps her freezing hands warm.

   It scares her, how fast she’s fallen for the Doctor, how much she misses him even though they’ve spent every night during the past week together. Even more so since she’s aware of that it won’t last, that their blissful lazy mornings with breakfast in bed are numbered. At least, she doesn’t know how to trust that it could ever work out, even though she desperately wants it to.

   In a few weeks time, the history course will be over and he won’t be her professor anymore. That will certainly make it easier. There’s still the age difference, of course, and the fact that Vastra and Jenny seem to hate him, for some reason she can’t fathom, but maybe they could work around those things. Maybe.

   Then she’s standing on the porch of his house, and he’s opening the door, his grey locks tousled, his white shirt a little wrinkled, and she forgets all about everything except for _him_ , places an arm around his neck, stands up on her tiptoes and presses her lips against his, still holding her cup of coffee in her other hand. He seems taken by surprise, but it doesn’t take long before he draws her closer towards him and opens his mouth slightly. Clara sucks on his lower lip for a second before breaking away from the kiss to catch her breath.

   “How was Amy?” the Doctor asks her, playing with a strand of hair, twirling it around his fingers.

   “Fine,” Clara mumbles, leaning her head against his chest. “Fine, yeah.”

   “Have you eaten anything or should we order food? I would have made something, but I haven’t been to the supermarket this week, so my cupboards are pretty empty.”

   “Pizza?” Clara suggests, looking up at him with a smile on her lips.

   “Sounds fine by me,” he says, before leaning down to kiss her again, Clara’s coffee growing cold.


	21. Chapter 21

 “Why can’t you just tell me where we’re going?” the Doctor sighs.

   “Impatient, are you?”

   “We’ve already driven for, like, four hours. I think I have the right to feel a little bit frustrated.”

   Clara reaches over to kiss him on the cheek. “Are you sure you aren’t eight years old?”

   “I don’t think eight year olds are allowed to drive cars,” he says.

   “Yeah, I suppose you’ve got a point there. Anyway, we’re almost there.”

   “Are you sure?” he asks her, stealing a glance at her across the car. “’Cause all I can see is trees and more trees. We’re not going hiking, are we?”

   “Worried about getting mud on your beloved boots, Mr Grumpy?”

   He shakes his head. “Sorry, I am being grumpy, am I not? I’m just tired. And hungry. Will there be food, wherever we’re going, or will we have to collect our own, I don’t know, berries and mushrooms?”

   “I brought food,” Clara says, gesturing towards her rucksack. “And no, we’re not going hiking. It would probably end with me getting eaten by a bloody bear. Do bears eat humans?”

   “I’m not an expert on bears, sorry. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and find out.”

   “That’s not very romantic, letting me risk my life and possibly get eaten by a bear while you’re busy making scientific observations. You should throw yourself in my way. That’s the noble thing to do.”

   A smile tugs at the corners of the Doctor’s mouth. “And get killed because you were stupid enough to get in the way of the bear? Dream on.”

   Clara rolls her eyes at him, but she’s smiling, too. “Thanks a lot.”

   “You’re welcome.”

   “Turn left here,” Clara says, gesturing towards the narrow, winding road that leads to the beach where the cottage is located. There’s no sign anywhere, but she could probably find her way to it with her eyes closed, after all the time she spent there during her childhood.

   “This reminds me more and more of a horror story,” the Doctor says, but follows Clara’s order. “Is this when I’m going to discover that you actually died a hundred and twenty years ago and have just been seducing me in order to get to murder me as revenge for somebody who broke your heart?”

   Clara grimaces at him. “How did you know?”

   “I’m good at guessing, I suppose.”

   They drive the last kilometre in silence, before the trees thin out and the sea spreads out in front of them. The water is dark and the grass on the beach is blowing in the wind. It’s absolutely beautiful, but in a sad way, serving as a reminder of that the summer is over and the endless months of winter are approaching.  

   “This is … not what I was expecting,” the Doctor says, his gaze focused on the sea through the car windows. “Where are we?”

   “My family's got a holiday home here,” Clara says. “That cottage over there, the white one, can you see it?”

   There are several cottages scattered along the beach, but most of them seem to be abandoned during this time of the year. It actually resembles some kind of ghost town.

   The Doctor parks his car outside of Clara’s family’s cottage and with her heart beating unnecessarily loudly in her chest, Clara locks up the door to it. She doesn’t know why she’s so nervous. Maybe it’s the knowledge of how far away from the rest of the world that they are. There, none of the reasons behind why they shouldn’t be together matter. The Doctor might be Clara’s professor and she might be his student, but there, they’re just Clara and the Doctor, and everything else is insignificant. There’s nobody there to judge them and nobody there to stop them and it _is_ scary, but Clara also wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the entire world.

   The furniture in the cottage is old and mismatching, most of it bargains from garage sales, but Clara’s always found it charming. She takes off her shoes and her coat and the Doctor follows her example before she leads him to the kitchen, where she piles up the food from her rucksack on the table. Noodles, sandwiches, chocolate, biscuits, orange juice, some fruit.

   “You said you were hungry,” she says, glancing at the Doctor from the corners of her eyes.

   He’s standing in the doorway to the room, looking pretty lost, pulling a hand through his hair. “I am,” he says. “I’m just … I’m just trying to take all of this in.”

   Clara closes the distance between the two of them until she’s standing right in front of him and then meets his eyes with her own. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

   “It’s beautiful, here,” he says, and Clara doesn’t know whether he’s avoiding or answering her question. “I’ve always loved the sea.”

   “And …?”

   “It just feels a little strange, that’s all,” he says.

   “It does,” Clara agrees.

   He shrugs and then ruffles her hair before he walks past her towards the table, examining the different foods on it. “So, noodles?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Not a particularly nutritious meal, is it?” he says, a smile playing on his lips.

   “You’re always free to go and collect those berries and mushrooms that you talked about earlier if you want to.”

   “On second thought, I think I’ll stick to the noodles.”

   “Good decision.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …… bye

After eating noodles and sharing a packet of biscuits, Clara and the Doctor go for a walk along the beach. At one point, Clara takes off her shoes to check how cold the water is – ice cold – and then starts splashing water on the Doctor, who’s standing a couple of metres away with his feet firmly in the sand. He pretends he’s annoyed, but she can see the smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and she closes the distance between them and kisses him, her feet cold, his shirt wet. It’s the most absurd and the most wonderful feeling, to get to kiss him out in the open.

   When they return to the cottage, it's getting dark and they’re both freezing. There’s a fireplace in the house, but neither one of them has any idea of how to kindle a fire, so instead they cuddle up together under all the blankets they can find. The Doctor seems a little tense at first, as he always does when Clara touches him, but soon relaxes and absentmindedly starts playing with her hair.

   “Why don’t you like physical contact?” Clara asks him, her head leaned against one of his shoulders, her gaze fixed at him.

   He bites his lip. “I’ve never said that I don’t like it.”

   “You know what I mean.”

   “Yeah.”

   Clara straightens her back so that she can look him in the eyes. “And …?”

   “I don’t know.”

   “Was it the same with River?”

   He nods. “In the beginning, yes.”                                    

   “Do you trust me?” Clara asks him.

   “What kind of question is that?”

   “I’m trying to understand you, here,” she says.

   “I don’t know,” he says again, and maybe it isn’t what Clara wants to hear, but somehow that seems to make the words matter even more, because at least he’s telling her the truth.

   She outlines his lips with one of her fingertips. “I’m not going to leave you.”

   “Everybody leaves,” he says. “Sooner or later.”

   “Later, then,” Clara says. “Much later.”

   “I’m much older than you. You shouldn’t waste your life with somebody like me.”

   “And yet, here you are,” she says, teasing him because she doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how to convince him of that she doesn’t care, that his age is the last thing that matters to her. “Your self-control’s obviously not _that_ good.”

   “Obviously,” he echoes, and almost sounds like he’s about to choke when Clara swings one of her legs over his lap and straddles him. “ _Clara_.”

   “Yes?” Clara says.

   “You didn’t bring me here just to seduce me, did you? You could have done that back at my house.”

   Clara can’t help but laugh, which makes the Doctor roll his eyes at her before he kisses her, both of them fumbling for each other, bruising each other’s lips, peeling off each other’s clothing in an almost desperate manner. They’re a mess, it’s all a mess, but he’s there, his skin burning under Clara’s hands, and she’s in love with him, and she thinks he’s in love with her, and she wants him more than she’s ever wanted anybody.

   The Doctor puts Clara down on her back and leaves a trace of love bites across the skin of her neck and her stomach, making her tug at his hair, begging him to stop teasing her and just get on with it. She can’t remember any of them tugging off her knickers, but someone must have, as she can feel his breaths against the bare skin between her legs. Her hips instinctively grind against his mouth, and then his tongue is tracing the inside of her thighs.

   “ _Please_ ,” she whispers, before he moves his tongue to the exact place where she wants it and she has to bite her lip to keep herself from crying out. He plays with his tongue, circling her clit, his teeth gently scraping her skin. He obviously knows what he’s doing, and it’s almost unbearable, but in a really, _really_ good way. When he finally stops teasing her and takes her clit into his mouth and sucks on it, she can feel her entire body shuddering.

   When she comes, her eyelids flutter close and she cries out, tugging harder at his hair. She lies still for what could be seconds or several minutes, trying to catch her breath while the Doctor keeps his mouth between her legs.

   “Well,” she whispers, her eyes still shut, her voice weak. “That was certainly something.”

   When she raises her head a little to look at the Doctor, the bastard is smiling.

   Clara smiles, too, against her will. “I hate you.”

   “No, you don’t,” he says, moving until their hips meet again, and then traces Clara’s lips with his tongue so that she can taste herself.

   “Condoms,” Clara says, nodding towards the hallway of the cottage.

   “You actually brought condoms?”

   “Wouldn’t want to have to explain why I was pregnant with your child, would I?”

   “Well, miss Oswald,” he says, “when a man and a woman love each other very much …”

   Clara rolls her eyes at him and then licks the tip of his nose before she gets up to get the pack of condoms from her bag. She catches her own reflection in the mirror in the hallway, her hair tousled, her pupils blown, and grimaces at herself before returning to the sofa.

   It’s different, this time, slower and more hesitant, their lips lingering on each other’s, their tongues slowly exploring each other’s mouths, but Clara can feel him against her.

   “And you’re sure you want this?” she asks him while fumbling with the zipper of his jeans.

   He nods. “And you?”

   She sticks her tongue out at him. “Yes.”

   “Yes,” he echoes in a breathless whisper when she straddles his lap again and slowly sinks down onto his length. It hurts a little at first, but the pain soon ebbs away and is replaced by a blissful sensation. He doesn’t move until she does, but when she does, he grabs her shoulders and flips her over so that he is on top, and she lets him, ignoring the part of herself that wants to be in control of everything.

   He moves his hips carefully at first, and while it isn’t exactly unpleasant, it’s not enough, not after all the time Clara’s spent waiting for this.

   “Stop messing around,” she mumbles, tangling her fingers into his hair. “You can be gentle later.”

   “You really _are_ quite bossy, aren’t you?” he says, but when he thrusts into her again, it’s with enough force to make her gasp. He continues fucking her at the same pace and she arches into his thrusts, both of them moaning, their breaths ragged.

   When the Doctor quickens his rhythm and reaches down to rub his fingers against her clit, it all becomes too much and Clara spills over the edge. She clutches him as she shudders against him and he continues thrusting into her until he comes, too, and then buries his face against her neck while he lets the orgasm take him.

   “Are you okay?” Clara asks him after a while. Their bodies are still pressed against one another and none of them seem to remember how to move, yet.

   “I think so,” he says, his voice hoarse, before he rolls off her, lying down next to her instead. His cheeks are stained with tears. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying.”

   “Hey,” Clara whispers, shifting to her side and placing her arms around him. “It's okay.”

   He interlaces his fingers with hers before he takes a trembling breath and nods. “Yeah.”

   And then they lay there in silence, their fingers intertwined, and Clara thinks that maybe love isn’t intensified by absence, after all, but by terrifying closeness.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a really clear picture of the atmosphere I wanted to portray in this chapter in my head, and I have no idea of whether I succeeded in translating it onto paper, but anyway, here it is. xx

The next morning, Clara wakes up alone in the sofa. Her heart skips a beat, but then she notices the draft from the screen door to the porch. She wraps herself up in one of the blankets and crosses the floor, cold against her bare feet.

   The Doctor’s sitting on the porch with a cup of tea in a hand, looking out over the sea. He’s fully dressed, wearing his grey coat over a pair of jeans, but his hair is still gorgeously messy. He flinches when Clara sits down next to him, but offers his cup to her. She takes a sip from it, shivering in the cold.

   “I think you had a point in what you said yesterday,” the Doctor finally says, his gaze still fixed at the sea.

   Clara leans against his arm. “I have no idea of what I said, but okay.”

   “I don’t trust people,” he admits.

   “Oh,” Clara says.

   He grimaces. “I haven’t let anyone into my life in this way since … you know. And I’m still trying to figure out how to, I don’t know, not … shut you out when my instincts tell me to do so?”

   Clara simply nods, as she doesn’t know what to say.

   “Anyway,” the Doctor says, “you’re freezing.”

   Clara pulls the blanket tighter around herself. “I don’t mind.”

    “Do you _want_ to end up with a cold?”

   “Well,” she says, ”I wouldn’t mind having an excuse for staying here for a couple of more days with you.”

   The Doctor gives her one of his crooked smiles, but there's a sadness to it. “And live on biscuits?”

   “There’s a supermarket a couple of kilometres away,” Clara mumbles.

   “Tempting,” the Doctor says, ”but it would be irresponsible of me to keep you from your studying, wouldn’t it?”

   Clara’s lips curve upwards. “And sleeping with me isn’t?”

   “Okay,” he says with a laugh, “but think about how we’ll be able to be together without having to pretend that we’re not once you graduate.”

   “That’s a year and a half away,” Clara says, but the smile lingers on her lips, because of how casually he mentions a future with her, and how she would be lying if she said that she hadn’t thought about it, as well.

   It’s scary, though, thinking about what will happen with them, considering the age difference and … everything. If Clara is realistic, it’s hard to imagine it working. She’s let herself be swept up in the romance, ignoring reality, but as their relationship is getting deeper, it’s slowly creeping in through the cracks.

   And, well, maybe it isn’t going to end well, but the one thing she knows, is that she’s desperate enough to try.

 

 

They eat breakfast together in the kitchen, biscuits and oranges, neither one of them saying much, both constantly finding excuses to touch each other, reaching for the same biscuits so that their fingertips brush, nudging each other’s feet under the table, the Doctor leaning over its surface to tuck a loose strand of hair behind one of Clara’s ears.

   “You know, you still haven’t told me your name,” Clara says after she’s finished her second cup of tea.

   “Yeah.”

   “How bad can it be?” Clara asks him, her voice amused.

   “Pretty bad. Just … promise me you’ll still call me the Doctor.”

   “I promise.”

   “John Smith.”

   Clara can’t help but laugh. “What, your name’s John Smith?”

   He hides his face in his hands, his voice a low groan when he opens his mouth again. “I know.”

   “No, you don’t understand, I’m laughing because I already know someone called John Smith, not because I’m making fun of you.”

   He steals a glance at her from behind his fingers. “Really?”

   Clara stifles another laugh. “He’s one of my best friends.”

   “Anyway,” the Doctor says, lowering his hands, “my real name, that’s not the point. The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you choose, it’s, like, a promise you make.”

   “And what’s the promise?” Clara asks him.

   “Never cruel or cowardly,” he says, the gaze in his eyes absent-minded. “Never give in, never give up.”

   Clara regards him in silence for a moment. “Yeah,” she finally says. “Your real name is not the point.”

   She thinks she can see one of the corners of his mouth twitch. He doesn’t say anything about it, though, but turns his attention to his empty cup, instead, twirling it in his hands. “So,” he says, “do we have any plans for today?”

   “We could always go sunbathing,” Clara says, looking out through the kitchen windows. The sky outside is grey, dark clouds hanging over it. “Maybe take a swim.”

   “Get hypothermia,” the Doctor adds.

   “The standard winter holiday,” Clara says, a smile playing on her lips, before she tears her gaze away from the windows. “Actually, I do have a lot of homework to do, so we should probably head back pretty soon.”

   “I have quite a lot of work to catch up on, as well,” the Doctor admits.

   “Or we could just ignore all of our responsibilities and run away together.”

   “Or we could do that.”


	24. Chapter 24

It’s hard saying goodbye to the Doctor when he’s parked his car in front of the house where Clara and Amy live. Clara’s toes are numb from the cold and her lips swollen from their kisses when she finally breaks away from him and opens the door to the car.

   “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” she says, still sitting in her car seat, her gaze focused on him.

   “Yeah,” he echoes, a smile playing on his lips. “Go, now, or you won’t have time to get any work done before then.”

   She reaches for his shirt with her hands and kisses him softly on the cheek before she gets out of the car. She doesn’t say more. There’s no need for words anyway.

   Amy opens the door to their flat, looking so worried that the smile on Clara’s lips immediately fades away.

   “Has something happened?”

   “Not exactly,” Amy says, and then shrugs. ”Maybe.”

   “Amy, stop with what you’re doing and just tell me what’s going on.”

   She gives Clara the most pitiful look. “Vastra and Jenny are here.”

   “Fuck,” Clara whispers.

   “I would tell you not to worry,” Amy says, “but … I think they know.”

   “How?” Clara asks her, leaning against the wall in the hallway, trying to gather herself.

   ”I don’t know.”

   Clara regards her suspiciously. “ _You_ didn’t tell them about him, did you?”

   “Clara, you know I didn’t.”

   “Fuck,” Clara says again, her voice slightly less weak this time.

   “Maybe they’ll understand,” Amy says.

   “They won’t,” Clara says. “They hate him.”

   ”They know him?”

   ”They used to.”

   Clara takes off her coat and then takes a deep breath before she walks past Amy towards the kitchen of the flat, where she finds Vastra and Jenny sitting at the table. Amy’s served them tea, but they don't seem to have touched their cups.

   ”Clara,” Jenny says, the look in her dark eyes worried.

   “Who is he?” Vastra asks Clara, her voice brusque.

   ”What do you know?” Clara asks them, still standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

   “No,” Vastra says, “don’t ask us about what we know, tell us the truth.”

   Clara takes a trembling breath. “He’s older.”

   “That much we know,” Vastra says.

   Clara looks around for Amy, but she seems to have disappeared to her bedroom. “A lot older.”

   “Exactly how much older?” Vastra asks her.

   ”About thirty years, I think.”

   “Continue.”

   “We met at the coffee shop where I work,” Clara says. “That wasn’t a lie. But he’s a professor at the university.”

   They must have known, or at least had their suspicions, as neither one of them so much as raises an eyebrow.

   “He teaches French history,” Clara says, tears burning behind her eyelids, but she won’t let them fall, she can’t.

   “And his name?” Jenny asks her softly.

   Clara shakes her head. ”Don’t make me say it.” Because she _will_ cry, if they make her do so, she knows she will. “You know it already.”

   “What have you done, Clara?” Vastra says, but it’s obviously a rhetorical question.

   “I love him,” Clara says, and maybe it isn’t a good excuse, but it is the truth.

   “You know it can’t work out,” Vastra says.

   “You don’t know anything about us,” Clara snaps. She knows she sounds like a stubborn thirteen-year-old, and she’s so close to tears that it’s pathetic, but she can’t help it, she can’t help any of it.

   “No,” Vastra admits, “but I do know that your university has a policy against relationships between teachers and students.”

   “You can’t tell anyone.”

   “I think you’ll find that I can.”

   “This isn’t fair,” Clara says, desperately wiping away the tears falling down her cheeks.

   “I know it’s not,” Vastra says, “but we’re only trying to protect you, Clara, you know that.”

   “You can’t protect me from everything.”

   “Maybe not, but we’re sure as hell going to try.”

   “Please,” Clara says, leaning against the doorframe, her face hidden in her hands. “I’m begging you, _please_ don’t tell anyone. He’d be the one who would have to face the consequences and none of this is his fault. I’ll stop talking to him outside of class, I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t tell anyone.”

   “And you can promise us that, can you?” Vastra says. “That you would stop talking to him?”

   “I’d have to tell him why, first,” Clara says, her voice shaking, “but yes, I can.”

   “I’ll call him to talk to him about it,” Jenny says.

   Clara nods. To be honest she’d probably nod no matter what Jenny suggested, at this point.

   Vastra reaches for her cup of tea and takes a sip from it. “I think we’ve reached an agreement.”

   “Goodbye, then,” Clara says.

   “Clara …” Jenny says.

   Clara laughs, but the sound is completely devoid of any humour. “Are you really so naïve that you think I want to talk to you right now?”

   Vastra puts her cup back down on the table and rises from her chair. “I _am_ sorry. You know that, don’t you?”

   “You didn’t have to do this,” Clara says. She can’t bear to look at either of them.

   “No,” Vastra says, “maybe not, but I couldn’t let it go on, either.”

   “Can you tell me one thing?” Clara says while they put on their shoes in the hallway. “Who told you about it?”

   “Rani,” Vastra says. Rani’s their neighbour at the cottage and Clara realises that she must have seen her and the Doctor through her windows. “She saw you with ‘a significantly older man’ at the beach. I put two and two together, but I wanted to make sure I was right.”

   “And why did you come here?” Clara asks them. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to go to the cottage?”

   “Vastra wanted to go there,” Jenny says, “but I talked her out of it. Would you really have wanted us to disturb the two of you there?”

   “No,” Clara says. “No, I suppose not.”

   And then they leave and Clara doesn’t stop crying until she falls asleep, curled up in Amy’s arms, Amy carefully stroking her hair, whispering about how everything’s going to be fine in Clara’s ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The next chapters are most likely going to be quite angsty, but hang in there, there’s some good stuff coming up as well.)  
> (And for the record, I don’t think what Vastra did is okay, since Clara isn’t underage and should get to make her own decisions, no matter whether they’re responsible or not, but she has her reasons, and you’re going to find out more about them. And as for Jenny … well, you’ll see.)


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, what, the fourth chapter in a week? I’ve been avoiding studying for my mock exams, but I should probably get on with it now.  
> (By the way, you should listen to Mia Wray’s cover of Accidentally in Love, it reminds me so much of this fic.)

”Clara,” Amy says the next morning when they’re eating breakfast, or, well, Amy is eating breakfast, while Clara is staring blankly at the cup of coffee she’s holding in her hands, “they can’t monitor your entire life.”

   “I know,” Clara says, her voice shaky.

   Amy puts down her sandwich on the table. “They’re treating you like you’re five years old. Why are you letting them?”

   “The Doctor could lose his job if they tell anyone.”

   “And don’t you think he ought to get a say in this decision?”

   Clara shakes her head. “I don’t want to be the cause behind it, regardless of his opinion.”

   Amy watches Clara quietly, her gaze thoughtful.

   “What?” Clara asks her.

   “I didn’t say anything.”

   “No, but you were thinking something.”

   Amy takes a sip from her coffee cup. “This is ridiculous.”

   “Oh,” Clara says, “and you ignoring John for half a year wasn’t?” The words come out harsher than she intended them to be.

   “I understand that you’re upset,” Amy says, rising from the table, “but don’t take this out on me.”

   “I’m sorry,” Clara says, wiping away the tears that are falling down her cheeks again.

   “Yeah,” is the only answer she gets from Amy.

 

 

Amy’s right, of course. Clara shouldn’t let Vastra and Jenny dictate her life. She should have confronted them about it, she should have told them that she isn’t a child or even a teenager anymore, she should have told them that she has got her own life now, and that they won’t always like her decisions, but that they should respect them and allow her to make her own mistakes.

   But the thing is, Clara’s always been the perfect daughter. She’s always helped them with housework, never snuck out, never got home drunk in the middle of the night, never even failed a fucking test. As their only child, she’s always been desperate to make them proud. She’s not used to disagreeing with them, and even less so to fighting with them.

   So, she doesn’t say anything to the Doctor when she enters the lecture hall that afternoon, her history book in her arms. She doesn’t even look at him, but keeps her gaze focused on the floor, and wishes that it would swallow her up. It doesn’t. Instead she sinks down on the chair next to Amy’s and opens the book to the page that’s written on the blackboard.

   To be honest, she doesn’t really know why she’s there. She could drop out of the class. She doesn’t need it to graduate.

   (No, the first thing isn’t true. She knows why she’s there, of course she knows, she just doesn’t want to admit it.)

   “You look terrible,” Amy says.

   Clara grimaces. “Thank you for the compliment.”

   “I wasn’t sure about whether you’d actually show up.”

   “Me neither,” Clara says, and it’s true. She sat in a toilet with her head in her hands and contemplated it for several minutes before she finally let her feet lead her to the lecture hall.

   “Today we’re going to focus on eighteenth century French literature and how it reflected the French society of the time,” the Doctor begins the lecture, rubbing his hands together. His accent is significantly more pronounced than it usually is when he’s teaching, and he’s not wearing his magician coat, but some kind of hipster t-shirt under a grey cardigan.

   When Clara’s finally allowed herself to look at him, she can’t tear her gaze away from him. She’s so distracted by his appearance that she doesn’t listen to anything he says, and the next thing she knows, the entire class is staring at her.

   “Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” she stutters, so flustered that it feels like she’s back in the Doctor’s office the time he accused her of eavesdropping.

   “I said, since you’re the only literature student taking this class, do you think you could give us some examples of French novels published during the second half of the eighteenth century?”

   His gaze is so intense that Clara’s forced to look down at her hands. She knows that she could mention at least a dozen novels, but right there and right then, she can’t remember a single one.

   “Clara?” the Doctor says. The way he pronounces her name makes her heart skip a beat, and Clara swears the tension between them is so thick that everyone in the room must be able to feel it.

   “I don’t know,” she says, finally meeting his eyes.

   “You can’t think of a single novel?”

   “No.”

   “Someone else?” the Doctor says, still keeping his eye contact with Clara.

   “Les Misérables?” someone suggests.

   The Doctor shakes his head and turns around to the blackboard. Clara can almost hear him sighing. “It was published in the late nineteenth century. Have any of you heard of Voltaire? Rousseau? Diderot?”

   When the lecture finishes, Clara feels utterly and completely exhausted. Still, she walks up to the Doctor’s desk, leaning against it while he cleans the board.

   “Clara,” he says when all the other students have left the lecture hall.

   “I’m sorry,” she whispers, meets his eyes one last time, and then leaves him behind her, the sound of her steps echoing off the walls.


	26. Chapter 26

When Clara returns to the flat after suffering through a lecture about medieval poetry, she finds Jenny standing outside of the door to it.

   She takes a deep breath. “What are you doing here?”

   “I wanted to explain some things,” Jenny says.

   “Go on,” Clara says, without opening the door.

   “Vastra … she cares a lot about you.”

   “I know _that_.”

   “What she did,” Jenny says, “it wasn’t okay.”

   “Yeah,” Clara says, her voice dripping of sarcasm. “I could see you speaking up to her.”

   “I visited the Doctor.”

   “I don’t really care, to be honest.”

   “You do,” Jenny says. “You care so much it’s ripping you apart. That’s why you pretend you don’t.”

   “Wow, apparently I’m not even old enough to speak for myself.”

   Jenny flinches. “Just listen to me, okay?”

   “So, what do you have to say?” Clara reluctantly asks her.

   “We talked for a long time,” Jenny says. “I think he really appreciated it. He doesn’t trust that many people, does he?”

   “Get on with it,” Clara says, ignoring the throbbing pain in her chest.

   “I told him about Vastra’s disapproval of your relationship, but I think he already knew as much as that she wouldn’t approve of it. God, Vastra can be stubborn. You get that from her, you know. I don’t think you realise how similar the two of you are.”

   “And what did he say?” Clara says, without letting any of Jenny’s words get to her.

   “A year and a half,” Jenny says.

   “Until I graduate.”

   Jenny purses her mouth. “I know it’s a long time away, but it would be for the best. It would also give Vastra time to get used to the idea. And she won’t be able to do anything about it, afterwards. Nobody will.”

   Clara shakes her head. “I don’t know. I can’t think straight right now.”

   “Or you could fight it out with her,” Jenny says. “I would do it myself, but trust me, I’ve tried talking to her about him for twenty-five years now, and she doesn’t listen to me, not when it comes to him.”

   “Why does she hate him so much?” Clara asks her.

   “Well,” Jenny says, “it was a wild graduation night.”

   Clara raises an eyebrow. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

   “We were all drunk,” she says. “At one point during the evening, the Doctor kissed me, and Vastra caught the two of us together.”

   “Doesn’t seem like a sufficient reason to start hating someone who was your best friend.”

   Jenny grimaces. “No, it gets more complicated. You know Strax, yeah?”

   Clara knows the name, yes. Strax is her biological father, but Vastra and Jenny have never told her more than that about him, and she’s never met him, only seen a blurry photograph of him.

   “He was another best friend of ours,” Jenny says. “The paternoster gang, we used to call ourselves. Anyway, the Doctor and Vastra had a huge fight, and while I was trying to calm down Vastra and convince her of that the kiss didn’t mean anything, the Doctor disappeared together with Strax. Like I said, they were drunk, and the Doctor was upset with himself, and …”

   “What, he slept with Strax?”

   Jenny stifles a laugh, but it mostly sounds like she’s about to cry. “No. No, he didn’t. They went for a drive, and … the Doctor crashed the car. Strax died instantly.”

   “Oh.”                                                     

   “Vastra never forgave him, even though it technically wasn’t his fault. Partly, I think it’s because she blames herself, but she shuts me out for days whenever I try to talk to her about it.” A wistful look creeps into her eyes. “It was because of his death that we ended up with you, you know. His girlfriend didn't want to raise a child by herself.”

   Clara doesn’t really know what to do with all this information, so instead she lashes out. “The two of you adopted a child when you were my age, but I’m too young to be able to make my own decisions about whom to date? Isn’t that _a little_ hypocritical?”

   “I’m not going to stop you if you decide to keep seeing him,” Jenny says.

   Clara gives her a cold look. “You just ‘think it’s a good idea for me to wait for a year and a half’ before I do so.”

   “I can’t deny that,” she says, “but it’s not my life, is it?”

   “No,” Clara says after a few seconds of silence.

   “We’ll be returning back home later today,” Jenny says, “but call me, if you want to.” She raises a hand in an awkward goodbye gesture and then walks past Clara and down the stairs.

   “Wait,” Clara says before Jenny’s disappeared from view. Jenny turns her head to cast a glance at her. “Thank you.”

   “I only did what we should have done from the beginning,” Jenny says.

   Clara gives her a hesitant smile. “Just because something is the right thing to do, doesn’t mean that it’s easy to do it, does it?”

   “He talks about you like you put the stars in the sky, you know,” Jenny says.

   “He’d better.”

 

 

When Jenny’s left, Clara takes a long bath, doing her best not to think about anything at all. It doesn’t go too well.

   She can’t understand why her parents never told her that Strax was dead. She always assumed that neither one of her biological parents wanted anything to do with her, and while she never cared that much about it as long as she had got Vastra and Jenny, it would have been nice to know.

   She shuts her eyes and then lets her head sink down beneath the surface of the water. Nothing seems to matter when you can’t see or hear anything and the only thing you can feel is the warm water against your skin. No parents with complicated pasts, no men with dim blue eyes and gangly limbs, no chances of ruining anyone’s lives, no decisions to be made.

   “Clara?” someone calls, and Clara reluctantly raises her head and blinks a few times to get used to the light in the bathroom. “Good, you’re alive,” Amy says. She’s standing next to the bathtub, holding a towel in her hand. “Get up, now, you’ve been in here for hours.”

   Clara makes a sad face at her, but does as she is told. Five minutes later they’re sitting in the living room, chewing on a piece of pizza each in front of a terrible comedy that’s showing on the television.

   “Jenny came by, earlier,” Clara finally says.

   “You don’t seem too thrilled about it.”

   “No, it’s just … she gave me a lot to think about.”

   “And did you talk about what happened with her?”

   Clara reaches for her glass of red wine and nods. “And about her and Vastra’s past. Apparently, my biological dad’s dead. Car accident.”

   Amy puts down her piece of pizza and pulls Clara into a hug. “I’m sorry.”

   Clara buries her face against her chest, listening to her steady heartbeats. She feels like sobbing, again, partly because she’s sad, partly because she’s so thankful to have someone like Amy in her life, partly because there’s so much happening and she doesn’t want to have to deal with any of it and she’s, just, so fucking tired.

   “She also gave me her permission to go behind Vastra’s back,” Clara admits after a short silence, her words muffled by the fabric of Amy’s shirt.

   “And are you going to?” Amy asks her.

   “I don’t know,” Clara says, because she doesn’t. She loves him, that much she knows, but a year and a half isn’t _that_ long a time, after all, even though it feels like it, even though it feels like a fucking eternity. She could do it, potentially. Stay away from him until her graduation.

   Yeah, right.

   “Has something happened between the two of you?” Amy asks her, softly stroking her back.

   Clara shakes her head. “It’s just … everything’s become so _real_ , you know?”

   “It’s easier to be in love with the idea of someone than to be in love with them, isn’t it?” Amy mumbles.

   “It is,” Clara agrees with a sad smile.


	27. Chapter 27

Clara doesn’t attend the next two lectures that week, and the Doctor constantly finds his gaze drifting towards the empty seat next to Amy during them. She hasn’t said anything to him since she told him that she was sorry and ran away from him before he’d even had time to process her words, but he supposes he can understand why she doesn’t want to see him.

   He misses her terribly. He hasn’t eaten breakfast in a week because it feels too lonely without her by his side in the bed, without letting her tease him about the way he takes his coffee, without stealing slow, sugary kisses from her. He desperately wants to talk to her, just to ask her about what happened, but does his best to tell himself that she will talk to him if she wants to talk to him.

   He visits River’s grave, that weekend, and cries for almost half an hour, hunched over in front of the headstone. The flowers at the grave smell like summer.

   When he gets home again, he buries himself in his work, and forces himself not to think about anything else for the rest of the weekend. He orders pizza and Chinese food so as not to starve and doesn’t bother with showering or shaving or putting any clothes on.

   On Monday morning he both looks and feels like death. He takes a short shower and then pulls his hands through his hair in a futile attempt to make himself look respectable. His chin is covered in stubble, but he can’t bring himself to care about it.

   He’s five minutes late to his first lecture of the day, and while he’s apologising to the class, his gaze falls upon Clara. She’s whispering to Amy about something, wearing a smile on her lips, looking so radiant and so beautiful that the Doctor completely loses his train of thoughts.

   He pretends her seat is empty for the rest of the lecture.

   When he tells the class that they’re dismissed, his heart’s beating so fast that he’s having trouble focusing on anything else. And then Clara’s sitting on his desk, swinging her legs back and forth through the air, avoiding his gaze as defensively as he’s avoiding hers, where he’s sitting in his chair behind the desk.

   “Clara,” the Doctor says, but before he’s able to say anything more, Clara pulls him up from the chair and presses her lips against his. The kiss is rough and desperate, their teeth clashing, their lips bruising, both of them gasping for air.

   “The door is open,” Clara finally whispers, cupping his face with her hands. “Anyone could see us.”

   “What are we doing?” the Doctor asks her, his voice breathless.

   “I don’t know,” she says, a laugh escaping her lips. “I’m going to drop out of your class, you know. I can’t stand it, seeing you every week when I know we can’t be together.” He opens his mouth to protest, but she places a finger on his lips. “A year and a half. Then I’m going to, I don’t know, fucking marry you, and no one’s going to be able to stop me.”

   The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “Was that a proposal?”

   “Go shut the door,” Clara says.

   “Go shut the door yourself,” the Doctor says. “Or, you know, we could go and have coffee somewhere.”

   “I’m sorry,” Clara says, looking down at her feet, “but I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

   The Doctor grimaces. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

   Clara crosses the floor of the lecture hall to close the door and then leans her back against it. It reminds the Doctor of their first kiss a thousand lifetimes ago. “I don’t actually want to marry you,” she says. “Probably. But I do want you in my life.”

   “And …”

   “What Vastra thinks about you doesn’t matter to me,” she says, “but she’s right in that we’ll be in trouble if anyone finds out about us.”

   “Maybe it would be worth it,” the Doctor says, sinking back down onto his chair.

   Clara shakes her head. “Don’t. I won’t let you risk it.”

   “So what do you want me to do?” he asks her.

   “I don’t know,” she says, closing the distance between the two of them, sitting down on his desk again. She softly touches his legs with her toes and then looks up at him with a faint smile on her lips. “Wait for me, I suppose.”

   The Doctor traces her lips with a fingertip. “Clara, you know I will.”

   “I love you,” she whispers, tangling her hands into his hair and brushing her lips against his forehead, and the Doctor realises that it’s the first time any of them has said the words out loud without hiding them behind other words. “I never meant to fall in love with you, but I did, you know.”

   “Don’t say it like this is the end,” the Doctor says, intertwining his fingers with hers. “Say it like this is the beginning.”

                                                                                          

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I suppose this could be said to be the end of “part one”. I have my final IB exams coming up and I most likely won’t have time to update this fic that often before I’ve written my last exam (on the twentieth of May), which is why I wanted to bring it to some kind of conclusion, but don’t worry, I do intend to continue it. Also, thank you all so much for reading, commenting and leaving kudos. xx


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens in this chapter definitely wasn’t supposed to happen, but, well ... you'll see.

Clara studies harder than she’s ever studied, during the rest of that year. She spends her Christmas holidays with her face buried in novels she has to read for her classes and spends twice as much time as she used to do on all of her essays. She prepares for all of her exams for weeks and never has to join Amy and John for any of their all-nighters before them. She takes on more hours at work, as well, so that she’ll be able to pay off her tuition fee loans faster.

   As long as she doesn’t stop to _think_ about anything, it all works out fine. She’s not happy, but she’s surviving, and she learns that sometimes, that’s enough.

   She sees the Doctor at campus now and then, but only in brief flashes, as she always turns around and walks away from him with quick steps when she does. She can’t bear to let herself look at him, because if she does, she knows that her willpower will falter and everything will have been for nothing.

   One time in April they run into each other in the library, both of them blushing and stuttering excuses to each other, and then their eyes meet, and Clara mostly wants to die, but she doesn’t. Instead she draws him into a hug and leans her head against his chest. They stand there for several minutes, Clara listening to his heartbeats, he with his face buried in her hair. He smells like coffee and cologne and it’s all so familiar that it makes Clara’s fragile heart hurt in a way it hasn’t done for several months, because nothing hurts when you don’t let yourself feel anything.

   Outside, the world is blossoming. The leaves on the trees are turning green and the sun glitters over the students that flock to the parks on the campus to have picnics and relax after their lectures. Clara spends a lot of time reading on the balcony of her and Amy’s flat.

   “You’re miserable,” Amy says, once, an evening when she and Clara are eating curry in their kitchen.

   “I’m not,” Clara protests, as she always does.

   Amy regards her quietly for a couple of seconds before she opens her mouth again. “You’re right, you’re not. That’s what scares me. You’re indifferent to everything. You don’t _care_ anymore, do you?”

   Clara stares down at her plate of food without saying anything. She doesn’t know what to say.

   “You don’t care about anything,” Amy continues, and somehow manages to sound worried and furious at the same time. “I see you every day, and you haven’t asked me about how I’m doing for months. Do you even know what’s happening in my life?”

   “You’re going out with someone new?” Clara suggests hesitantly.

   “See, you don’t even know whether I’m dating somebody or not!”

   “I’m sorry,” Clara offers her, but Amy just shakes her head at her, rises from her chair and leaves the room, her plate still on the table.

   They don’t talk much during the last month of the school year, and it hurts more to lose Amy than it ever did to lose the Doctor, but Clara never admits it, not to herself, not to Amy, not to anyone.

   And she finally understands why Amy avoided John for so long.

 

 

The last day of the school year, Clara finds herself knocking on the door to the Doctor’s office.

   He stares at her for several seconds after he opens the door, and then Clara breaks into tears, and he holds her while she cries, sobbing so hard that her entire body shudders. She hasn’t cried in half a year, and now that she’s finally let the tears fall, they won’t stop.

   “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, I just … I didn’t know where else to go …”

   “Stop apologising,” he says, kissing her softly on the forehead. “What’s happened?”

   “I’ve fucked everything up. Amy hates me. John never talks to me anymore because Amy doesn’t. None of my friends back at home know anything about my life here. I can’t talk to my parents, and you … you …” She takes a trembling breath. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve spent the entire year so buried in my studies that I haven’t had time to think about anything else, and now that it’s summer, I don’t know what to …”

   “Come with me to Paris,” the Doctor tells her.

   The sentence is so unexpected that Clara doesn’t even know how to process it. She looks up at him, her sight blurred by her tears. “You’re going to Paris?”

   “My sister’s got a flat there, and she’s letting me stay in it over the summer. She travels a lot, due to her work.”

   For some reason, this doesn’t seem like the worst idea ever, like it should. Instead, Clara desperately wants to go with him, desperately wants to escape her reality, Amy, John and the goddamned coffee shop.

   “You don’t have to make a decision now, of course,” the Doctor says. “I’m leaving on Tuesday, but if you want to, you can come there in a couple of weeks or a month or … not at all, if you don’t want to. That’s also an option, of course.”

   “You’ve got a sister?” Clara asks him, his words from before finally sinking in for her.

   “Yep.”

   “I always thought you were an only child. And your parents? Are any of them still alive?”

   He shakes his head.

   “I’m sorry.”

   “What happened between you and Amy?” the Doctor asks her, sinking down onto the sofa in the office with Clara in his lap, his arms still around her. It’s as if they can’t bear to let each other go, now that they’ve finally allowed themselves to touch each other again.

   “Life, I suppose,” Clara says, before she scrunches up her face. “No, it was my fault. I … I’ve been so caught up in my own thoughts that I haven’t been paying anyone else any attention. I’ve missed you, you know.”

   The Doctor kisses her on the head again. “I’ve missed you, too. I wish you wouldn’t have started avoiding me altogether.”

   “Me, too,” Clara admits, “but at the time, it felt like the only solution to … everything. I don’t know. I was scared. Of loving someone. Of being in a relationship. Of being with _you_. My parents … well, they provided me with an excuse to … not have to deal with my fears. I mean, I don’t know if I looked at it like that back then, but in retrospective, I think that was what … stopped me from putting up a fight, you know?”

   “Yeah.”

   “So, Paris?” Clara says, looking up at him. He’s as beautiful as ever, dressed in a dark purple shirt, his grey locks in need of a haircut. She softly touches the scar on his ear.

   “Paris,” he echoes.

   “Us two, all alone, for …”

   “Two months.”

   Clara swallows. “Two months.”

   “Like I said, it’s just an option,” the Doctor says. “You don’t have to …”

   “Do you really think I don’t want to come with you?”

   “It’s been a chaotic year.”

   “Paris,” Clara says again with a laugh. The sound surprises her, and when she thinks about it, she realises that she can’t remember when she last laughed.

   “Was that a yes?” the Doctor asks her, his own lips curving upwards.

   “Give me a day to think about it,” Clara says, “but yes, I think that was a yes.”


	29. Chapter 29

“Paris,” Amy says, staring at Clara like she’s just told her that she and the Doctor are going to travel to another planet together.

   “Yeah,” Clara says. “I’ll look for someone who needs somewhere to live here over the summer, or if you already know of somebody, then that’s fine, too, but I’m going to Paris on Tuesday. I’ve already booked my ticket, and I’ll be back in the middle of August.”

   “And you didn’t feel the need to tell me this earlier?”

   Clara bites her lip. “It was a last minute decision.”

   Amy reaches for the remote control to turn off the television and then swings her legs up to the sofa. “Where are you going to live, anyway?”

   “There’s this cheap motel …” Clara begins, before she sighs and forces herself to stop being so ridiculous. “With the Doctor. His sister’s got a flat there.”

   “You’re back together,” Amy says, and Clara thinks she can hear something that sounds like relief in her voice, but she’s not sure, she stopped being able to tell what Amy’s thinking several months ago.

   “Not really,” Clara says, “but … yes, apparently I’m going to spend the summer with him.”

   “And what happens then?”

   “I don’t know,” Clara admits, before she turns her gaze down towards her feet. “I’m sorry, Amy. For everything. I shouldn’t have … I shouldn’t have let what happened between me and the Doctor affect our relationship.”

   “Yeah,” Amy says, but it doesn’t particularly sound like she means it.

   “I’m not expecting you to forgive me just like that,” Clara says. “You shouldn’t. But please, start talking to me again. I miss it. You don’t have to tell me anything important, if you don’t want to, but … I can’t stand you not saying _anything_.”

   “I’ll tell your parents that you’re spending the summer with me, okay?” Amy says after a few seconds of silence. “And then we’ll talk about everything that’s been going on when you get back from Paris.”

   “You’re my best friend, you know that, right?” Clara tells her, and she wants to hug her, but the tension between the two of them is still too thick, their relationship still too fragile.

   Amy doesn’t say anything, but when Clara glances over at her, she’s blinking away tears, so Clara supposes that means that their friendship isn’t ruined beyond repair.

   She really, truly hopes it isn’t.

 

 

“How on earth do you pack for two months?” Clara greets the Doctor when she calls him on Monday evening, standing in the middle of her bedroom, all of her clothes thrown all over the floor. “What is the weather like in Paris? Will I need to bring jumpers? My raincoat?”

   “You only need to do one thing,” the Doctor says, and she can hear the smile on his lips even though she can’t see it.

   Clara lets herself fall down on her back in her bed. “What, bring lingerie? Trust me, I intend to.”

   “Well, I was going to say ‘stop worrying so much’, but why not.”

   “Are you flirting with me?” Clara asks him, her lips curving upwards.

   “Depends,” he says. “Are you flirting?”

   “Yes.”

   “Yes,” he agrees.

   “So,” Clara says, “raincoat or no raincoat?”

   “You’ll probably be able to borrow Missy’s if you need one. But seriously. Stop worrying so much. There are shops in Paris, you know, if you happen to forget something.”

   Clara grimaces. “Yeah, I suppose so. I just … it’s the first time I’ve ever been abroad for longer than a weekend. What if it all goes wrong and I lose my passport and I get robbed and oh my god _I don’t even speak French_.”

   “I could teach you,” the Doctor says. “I’ve been told that I’m a pretty good teacher.”

   “Oh, shut up. You speak French?”

   “I grew up in France, actually. My parents were both born in Glasgow, though, and we moved back there when I was eight.”

   “There’s so much I don’t know about you,” Clara mumbles.

   “You just have to ask,” he says.

   “Mm,” Clara says. “I will. But now I really have to continue packing so that I won’t have to panic over what I’m going to bring with me tomorrow.”

   The Doctor laughs. “You do that.”

 

 

“John’s staying here with me over the summer,” Amy tells Clara when she’s finally done with her packing and leaves her room for the kitchen to get herself a cup of tea before she goes to sleep. “He’s been looking for somewhere to stay, anyway, since his old flatmate is graduating and moving to London. Thought I should tell you, before you ask somebody else.”

   “Oh.”

   “I’m not kicking you out, hun, you’re still welcome back in August. But he might move in with us permanently for our last year here, as long as you don’t have anything against it.”

   Clara pours the boiling water from the kettle into a cup and shakes her head. “He basically lives here already, anyway, so he might as well share the rent with us.”

   “That’s what I told him.” Amy looks down at her hands where they’re resting on the table. “So, you’re leaving tomorrow?”

   “Yeah, the Doctor’s picking me up at four o’clock in the afternoon, and then our plane leaves at seven.”

   “I’m happy for you, you know,” Amy says. “I was just surprised when you first told me about it, but I really hope you sort things out with him.”

   Clara hides her smile behind her tea cup. “Let’s hope so.”


	30. Chapter 30

Clara’s heart is beating madly in her chest when she knocks on the door to the Doctor’s house the next afternoon, with a rucksack slung over a shoulder and a suitcase in her other hand. She can’t believe that she’s actually doing this. She can’t believe that she doesn’t care if anyone finds out about it, if anyone finds out about _them_. Not enough to let it stop her, anyway.

   “Clara,” the Doctor greets her, a smile spreading across his face, and she reaches up on her tiptoes to place her arms around his neck and kiss him. When they part, they just stand there for several seconds, grinning ridiculously at each other.

   “So, are we taking your car to the airport?” Clara finally asks him, grabbing her suitcase again.

   “No, a friend of mine is driving us there. I hope that’s okay with you?”

   “You’ve told him about us?”

   “Her,” the Doctor corrects her. “Barbara. And, well, I didn’t say anything, but she’s ... good at figuring stuff out. So, yeah, she knows.”

   “And ...”

   “Don’t worry, she’s just happy that I’m not sulking anymore. She can’t wait to meet you, actually.”

   “You were sulking?” Clara asks him, poking a finger at his chest.

   “I was absolutely miserable. Barely slept for weeks.”

   A corner of Clara’s mouth twitches. “You never sleep.”

   He laughs. “Still. So, you ready?”

   “Yep.”

   The Doctor turns around. “Barbara, I know you’re eavesdropping. Why don’t you make yourself known to Clara?”

   A woman somewhere in her late thirties appears in the hallway, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t have listened in to your conversation. I was just curious. You’re the first person the Doctor’s ever shown a genuine interest in as long as we’ve known each other.”

   Clara can’t help but return her smile. “It’s okay. Hi.”

   “So, Clara, right?” Barbara says.

   “Yeah.”

   “It’s nice to finally meet you. I really hope this won’t be the last time.”

   “I’m sure it won’t,” Clara says, and the Doctor presses his lips against the top of her head.

   Barbara’s smile lingers on her lips. “Shall we go, then?”

   “I’ll just get my stuff,” the Doctor says, disappearing into the house, while Clara pulls her suitcase along the path leading down towards the street in front of the house, Barbara following her to her car.

   “I’m glad he’s met you,” Barbara tells her while she helps Clara with heaving the suitcase into the boot of the car. “He’s ... changed. He’s much more open than he used to be. Happier.”

   “And you don’t mind that he was my teacher back when we met?”

   “Do you?” Barbara asks her, her eyes fixed on Clara.

   Clara grimaces. “I’m trying not to. But sometimes it does make me uncomfortable, yeah.”

   “Don’t let it bother you,” Barbara says. “If you love him, the rest doesn’t matter. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure you do.”

   Clara looks down at her feet. Several seconds of silence pass before she finally nods. “I do.”

 

 

They check in at the airport and then sit down in a small café while they wait for the boarding of their flight. It’s all suddenly become very real, and Clara won’t lie, her stomach is full of butterflies, but mostly, it’s in a good way, like during roller coaster rides and first kisses and when you’re about to run off to Paris with the love of your life.

   “She was nice,” Clara says, sipping her tea. “Barbara, I mean.”

   “Yeah,” the Doctor says. “She is. She’s always cared about me even though I never really made an effort to get to know her before this year.”

   “You’ve known each other a long time, then?”

   “About ten years, I’d say? She’s another history professor at the university.”

   “Oh,” Clara says. “I didn’t realise.”

   “She won’t tell anyone about us, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the Doctor says, slowly stirring his coffee.

   “No, I trust her, I just ... it’s nice, that people know about us, you know? Not having to keep it a secret from _everyone_. It makes it feel more like a ... I don’t know, a real relationship? Like I’m not your dirty little secret, or whatever.”

   The Doctor laughs. “Trust me, you’ve always been much more than that.”

   Clara grabs his hands across the table, intertwining her fingers with his. “I’ve missed you.”

   “You’ve already said that, like, thirty times,” the Doctor says, but his tone is amused.

   “Yeah, well, I have.”

   “And I’ve missed you, Clara Oswald.”

   “Do you know, I’ve never actually been in an aeroplane before?” Clara says, looking out through the panoramic windows with a view over a plane runway.

   The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

   “I’m a little scared, to be honest,” she admits.

   “It’s safer than driving a car.”

   “Care to repeat that when our plane crashes and we die in a fiery wreck?”

   “I’ll be sure to.”

   “Is your sister going to be there, when we arrive?” Clara asks him, letting go of his hands to take another swig of her tea before it grows cold.

   The Doctor nods. “She’s leaving for Singapore on Monday.”

   “Does it run in your family, travelling?”

   “I think it’s escaping that runs in the family, to be honest,” he says, looking down at the table. “Travelling’s just one of the forms it takes.”

   Clara watches him quietly for a few seconds. “What do you escape from?”

   “Risks of getting my heart broken.”

   “And yet you’re here with me right now.”

   The corners of his mouth curve upwards. “What can I say, I was fucked from the second I met you. Should we look up our gate, now?”

   “Sounds like a good idea,” Clara agrees, emptying her tea cup before rising from the table. “So. Paris. Let’s do this.”

   “Let’s,” the Doctor echoes, the smile on his lips growing wider, and then he and Clara make their way through the airport, hand in hand, surrounded by people rushing towards their gates, people who don’t know anything about Clara and the Doctor and haven’t got any reasons to care about the story of their lives.


	31. Chapter 31

Paris. The city is as magical as Clara remembers it being, and she barely says anything to the Doctor while they find their way to his sister’s flat, too occupied with watching everything around them with large eyes, taking in the sights of the old, white buildings and the scent of freshly baked bread from the boulangeries.

   The flat is located on the sixth floor of a house in Montmartre, among narrow cobblestone streets that look like they should belong in a fairy tale. There’s no lift in the building, only a steep stairway, so Clara and the Doctor have to half-carry, half-drag their bags all the way up, and Clara’s pretty sure all of her muscles are dead by the time they finally reach the sixth floor.

   There’s music echoing in the stairway from the flat that the Doctor knocks on the door to, and it takes over a minute before the door is opened by a man with dark hair, dressed in something that looks like a real, actual kilt.

   “Ooh, Doctor!” the man greets the Doctor, drawing him into a hug. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

   The Doctor doesn’t stiffen at the body contact, as he usually does when somebody touches him, but hugs him back. “No, it’s been far too long. I’ve missed you, you know. Was afraid you’d forgotten about me.”

   “Never,” the man promises the Doctor, before turning his attention to Clara. “Now, who’s this?”

   “I’m Clara Oswald,” Clara says, awkwardly shaking one of his hands.

   “Jamie McCrimmon,” he introduces himself to her. He’s Scottish, like the Doctor, but his accent’s much thicker. “Nice to meet you. And you, Doctor, have kept a thing or two secret from me, haven’t you?”

   “You haven’t asked,” the Doctor defends himself, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

   Jamie just laughs and hugs him again, and the Doctor doesn’t shy away from his touch this time, either.

   “What’s taking you so long, Jamie?” someone shouts from inside the flat. In the next moment, a blonde woman appears in the hallway, wearing a white lace dress and a hat with … fruits on? When her gaze falls upon the Doctor, she stops in the middle of the hallway, and Clara’s pretty sure neither one of them is breathing.

   “Romana,” the Doctor finally says, his voice frail.

   “Yes,” the woman says, before turning around and disappearing back into the flat, the sound of her heels clattering against the floor echoing in the hallway.

   “Don’t worry about her,” Jamie tells the Doctor, while Clara tries to catch the Doctor’s eyes without succeeding. “You were always bound to run into each other again, sooner or later, so you might as well get it over with.”

   The Doctor doesn’t say anything, just crouches down to get his bags from the floor, offers Clara a weak smile, and then they find their way into the flat, Clara’s heart beating wildly in her chest.

   The flat is huge, but all the stuff in it makes it appear much smaller. Well, “stuff”. Clara would probably be more inclined to call it rubbish. It’s like the Doctor’s sister has bought every single souvenir from every single place she’s ever visited and chosen to store all of them in the flat. There are maps, paintings, masks and fucking plates hanging all over the walls. The floors are covered in carpets with exotic patterns and there are dozens of wind chimes hanging from the ceiling. There are no real lamps anywhere, as far as Clara can see, only fairy lights. There’s even a collection of miniature Eiffel towers in one of the many bookshelves.

   “She never throws anything away,” the Doctor tells Clara, and Clara grimaces back, because that much is pretty obvious.

   “Well, hello!” a woman greets them from the kitchen, where a group of people are gathered around a huge table. All of them except for Romana look up at Clara and the Doctor, greeting them with scattered hellos and bonjours. The table’s set with dozens of plates filled with food of all kinds and several bottles of wine. “My long-lost brother, back at last! And you must be Clara?”

   Clara gives Missy a tentative smile. “I am.”

   “Welcome, welcome! I suppose you must be hungry, after your flight?”

   “A little,” Clara admits.

   “Doctor, show her where you’re going to be sleeping, so that you can put your stuff there, and then you have to join us and tell us _everything_ about how the two of you met.”

   That makes both Clara and the Doctor blush and the Doctor stutters something incomprehensible before they leave the kitchen, the Doctor leading the way through the flat until they reach a door on the other side of the living room. The room behind the door is the complete opposite to the rest of the flat, with white walls and large windows with a view over the cobblestone street outside, the only pieces of furniture a bed with dark blue sheets, a wardrobe and a mostly empty bookshelf.

   “There’s a bathroom through there,” the Doctor says, gesturing towards the other door in the room. “You can just … leave your stuff here.”

   “So, everyone here seems to know you,” Clara says, letting her bags fall to the floor.

   The Doctor shrugs. “Missy, she … collects people. Mostly British people who have just moved to Paris. She’s done it for years, offers them someplace to stay while they look for flats and jobs here, cooks for them, introduces them to other British people in the city, helps them with stuff and takes care of them, you know? You have to be invited to her clique, but once you’re in, you’re in, no matter what happens, and that means that you’re welcome here anytime you want. So, the same people are kind of always around, and since I spend most of my holidays here, I’ve gotten to know them pretty well.”

   “And Romana?” Clara asks him, her tone cautious.  

   “It’s a long story,” he says, “and I can hear your stomach rumbling, so let’s get some food, now, yeah?”

   Clara crosses her arms over her stomach, and the Doctor ruffles her hair, a smile playing on his lips.


	32. Chapter 32

“So, Clara Oswald,” Missy says, sipping on a glass of wine, “tell me about yourself.”

   Clara reaches for the bowl of salad to fill the empty side of her plate with tomatoes. “Where should I start?” She directs the question towards Missy, but her gaze is turned towards the Doctor where he’s sitting next to her, so close that their arms brush against each other every so often. “How much did the Doctor tell you?”

   “Oh, he never tells me anything,” Missy says. “He’s very secretive, as you must have noticed.”

   “Not to mention manipulative,” a girl sitting at the end of the table adds. She’s wearing a striped shirt and there’s a bomber jacket hanging over the backrest of her chair. She can’t be older than eighteen, and Clara can’t help but wonder how she’s ended up in Paris. “He always lies about his intentions.”

   “Do not,” the Doctor protests. “That was just because I was trying to help you overcome your fears!”

   “I’m not scared of anything,” the girl says with a grimace before turning her attention back to Clara. “I’m Ace, by the way.”

   “Dorothy McShane,” the Doctor says, a smile playing on his lips.

   Ace glares at him. “You of all people should know what it’s like, hating your name.”

   The Doctor takes a swig of his wine. “Yeah, I suppose. I’m sorry.”

   “Have you ever been to Paris before, Clara?” Romana asks her, but there’s something strained to the politeness in her tone, and it’s hardly possible not to notice how defensively she’s avoiding looking at the Doctor.

   “Once,” Clara tells her. “Class trip.”

   “Class trip,” Romana echoes. “So that was ages ago, then?”

   Clara can feel her cheeks burning. “Not exactly.”

   That seems to make something click for Missy, judging by how she gets up from her chair and tugs at the jumper that the Doctor’s wearing. “I think you have some things to explain to me.”

   “I’m sorry,” the Doctor mouths at Clara before he’s being dragged out of the kitchen.

   “Wait,” a woman with short, brown hair says, her accent Australian. “You’re not ... are you?” She’s sitting next to a woman with curly hair who’s dressed in a dark red velvet shirt, and they’re either together, or they’re just really, really comfortable with touching each other.

   “Depends on what you’re suggesting, I suppose,” Clara says, refusing to let her voice waver, even though her heart is pounding so hard in her chest that she’s having trouble focusing on anything else.

   “How did the two of you get to know each other?” the woman asks.

   Clara can feel all the eyes in the room on her. She hesitates for a moment, but what the hell, they’re all bound to find out the truth sooner or later, and besides, she’s tired of secrets. “I was one of his students.”

   The silence in the kitchen after she’s uttered her words is deafening, but then Jamie grabs her hands across the table, and she’s finally able to let go of the breath she’s holding. “Do you love him?”

   “Yes.”

   “Then nothing else matters, does it?”

   “Life’s too short for not taking chances, especially when you’re in love with someone,” the woman with curly hair agrees, leaning against the other woman’s shoulder, and she and Ace nods.

   Clara wants to hug all of them, but settles for a smile. It falters when she catches Romana’s expression, though, and then Romana rises from her chair and disappears from the kitchen.

   “Ouch,” the Australian woman says.

   Jamie grimaces. “Don’t take it personally. She and the Doctor, they ... well, they share a lot of history. And he fucked up quite royally. Several times.”

   It’s strange, how the Doctor seems to have got an entire life here that Clara wasn’t even aware of two weeks ago. She never knew any of these people existed, and god, she wishes he would have told her about all of this before she agreed to come with him. Ultimately, she doesn’t think it would have changed her decision, but it would have been nice to have been prepared for it.

   “So what happened, between you and the Doctor?” the Australian woman asks. “I mean, how did the two of you go from student and professor to ... this?”

   “Uh,” Clara says, fumbling for words to describe everything that’s happened during the past year. She has no idea of where to begin. “I still don’t know your names, you know.”

   “Oh, I’m sorry,” the Australian woman says. “I’m Tegan. And this is my girlfriend Nyssa.”

   “Don’t I get to introduce myself?” the woman with curly hair – Nyssa, apparently – asks, her face arranged in a faked expression of disapproval.

   Tegan kisses her on a cheek. “Nope.” Clara can’t help but smile at how disgustingly cute the two of them are. “So, tell us,” Tegan says, turning her attention back to Clara.

   “Well, we met in the coffee shop where I work, and then I was so intrigued that I signed up for one of his classes.”

   “Was it love at first sight?” Nyssa asks her, her lips curved upwards.

   Clara thinks back to their first meeting. “Hardly ‘love’, but I was definitely attracted to him.” She bites her lip. “Then I had too much to drink at a party, and he took care of me.”

   “What, he actually went to a party?” Jamie says. “I thought he hated everything even remotely fun, the grumpy old sod.”

   “He’s not that old,” Clara protests, because, well, the age difference is still a sensitive topic to her, whether she’d like to admit it or not. “But, yeah, no, he didn’t go to a party, it was held in his neighbour’s house.”

   “And what happened then?” Ace asks her, her elbows leant against the table.

   Clara shrugs. “I’ve always been terrible at hiding my feelings, so he figured it out.”

   “Don’t leave us hanging like that, continue,” Tegan encourages her.

   “He kissed me,” Clara admits, but before she’s had the time to say more, the Doctor himself appears in the doorway to the kitchen again, Missy a step behind him, and all the colour drains from Clara’s face in a heartbeat.

   “Don’t worry,” Missy says, “I’m not going to say anything, I’m happy as long as he’s happy.”

   There’s something uneasy in the Doctor’s expression when he glances at Clara, though.

   “We should probably get going,” Tegan says, and the others agree with her, rising from the table. They all exchange air kisses and à bientôts with each other, and then they’re gone, and the Doctor nods at Missy before she leaves the kitchen again and he sinks down at the table next to Clara.

   Clara turns around on her chair to face him. “What did she say?”

   “Well,” the Doctor says, “she could probably have been more supportive, but I can’t say that I blame her. I should have told her about how we met before I brought you here, I know, and I’m sorry.”

   “There are a lot of things you should have told me about, as well,” Clara says, her gaze focused on him.

   He nods. “Yeah.”


	33. Chapter 33

The Doctor suggests that they should go somewhere, explore the city now that they’re there, and Clara agrees, eager to get out of the flat and away from Missy. They walk through Montmartre with their hands intertwined, neither one of them saying much. It’s slowly getting dark outside and the cobble stone streets are bathing in the dim, warm light from the windows of the old houses. As they get closer to Sacré-Cœur, the quarters are getting more and more touristy, with people trying to sell Clara and the Doctor flowers, paintings, and all kinds of cheap souvenirs, mainly stuff related to the Eiffel tower. Clara gets to hear the Doctor speak French as he wards off a particularly insistent salesman, and if she wasn’t as anxious as she is, she’d most likely find it ridiculously attractive.

   The church is beautiful, lighting up the darkness surrounding it, and Clara makes a humming noise at the sight of it.

   “Are you okay?” the Doctor asks her. “You seem a little ...”

   “I’m fine,” she instinctively tells him, before she realises how stupid she’s being and sighs. “I’m sorry. It’s just ... a lot. All of this.” She suddenly feels like she’s close to tears, but blinks until her eyes aren’t burning anymore, refusing to let them water.

   The Doctor draws her into a hug, burying his face in her hair. “Clara, my Clara.”

   “I don’t want to blame you,” she says, the words muffled against his shirt, “because I  _wanted_  to come here, and I want to be with you, god, you know I want to, but everything’s a mess, and I just ... I just wish things were different, you know? I wish I’d met you under different circumstances, I wish I didn’t have to lie to my parents about my whereabouts, I wish I could trust people not to judge me.”

   “And I was an idiot,” the Doctor says. “I should have told you everything before I asked you to come here with me. I just hadn’t talked to you in half a year, and I didn’t know if I were ever going to get to talk to you again if I let you go, so I didn’t think it through, and it was a mistake. One of many I’ve made.”

   “Yes,” Clara says, “it was a mistake.”

   “You can go back to the UK if you want to, you know. I’ll pay for your plane ticket.”

   “Stop,” Clara says, looking up at him, his face pale in darkness, his hair a halo around his head. “I’m not going anywhere, unless you want me to. I’ve got a whole city to explore before I do.”

   The Doctor kisses her on the forehead, the touch of his lips against her skin so soft that she barely feels it. “No, I don’t want you to, but I want you to be happy. I always do.”

   “And I’m happy when I’m with you. Do you really think I would go to these lengths to be with you if I weren’t?”

   “I love you,” the Doctor whispers, as if the words are too precious, too important, to be spoken aloud, and Clara can feel her heart clench.

   She reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek before taking a step back from him and nodding towards the stairs leading down towards the sea of lights that is the city. “Shall we?”

   “If you’re sure we’re okay? If you’re okay?”

   “I want you to be honest with me, okay?” Clara says. “I want you to tell me things, even when it’s hard for you. I guess, really, I just want you to trust me. If you can promise me to at least  _try_ , then we’re okay.”

   The Doctor nods. “Absolutely fair enough.”

   “So,” Clara says, “can we go and see the Eiffel tower now?”

   “Isn’t that a little bit ... cliché?”

   Clara can’t help but smile at the Doctor’s expression. “Yes. Maybe. But I’m going to be an English lit teacher, after all, so I think I’m allowed to be a bit of a romantic.”

   A smile tugs at the corners of the Doctor’s mouth. “You’ve never told me you’re planning on becoming a teacher.”

   “The topic never came up.”

   “No, I suppose not. I can see it, you know. You as a teacher.”

   “I don’t want to teach university students, though. I want to teach children. Inspire them. Encourage them to follow their dreams. Change the world, I suppose, even if it’s only a small part of it.”

   The Doctor regards her quietly for several seconds, his gaze so intense that she’s almost begun to feel uncomfortable with it when he opens his mouth again. “I think you’d probably be an amazing teacher.”

   Clara looks down at the ground as if that would hide the smile that’s spread across her lips from him. “I think I’d better be.”

   “So, the Eiffel tower, it is?”

   “Yep.”

 

 

They take the metro to a station a short walk away from the Eiffel tower. Then they turn around a corner and it’s there, towering over them right in front of them, glittering in the darkness.

   “I’d forgotten how beautiful it was,” Clara says, her voice slightly breathless.

   “You really sound like a tourist, you know that?” the Doctor says, but there’s an obvious affection in his tone.

   “Oh, shut up,” she tells him, hooking arms with him and leaning against his side, a smile on her lips. “You should try getting enthusiastic over things now and then instead of always pretending to be all cool and nonchalant.”

   He almost sounds offended when he opens his mouth to protest. “I don’t have to pretend, I  _am_  cool.”

   Clara’s grin grows wider. “Of course you are, of course you are.”

   “I hope you don’t mind me saying it, but you two look awfully cute together,” an older British woman interrupts them by saying. “Do you want me to take a picture of you?”

   “I don’t think we have a single picture of the two of us together, yet,” the Doctor says. “What do you say, Clara, do we want one?”

   “Absolutely,” she says, fumbling for her phone in her rucksack.

   “She’s enjoying this just a little too much,” the Doctor tells the woman.

   Clara rolls her eyes at him. “And he’s enjoying teasing me just a little too much.”

   “Here on a romantic holiday, are you?” the woman asks them as Clara reaches her the phone.

   “We’re here for the whole summer, actually,” Clara says.

   “Oh,” the woman says as she takes the picture, Clara and the Doctor smiling at the camera, the Doctor with his arm around Clara, Clara with her head leant against the Doctor’s side, “how lovely.”

   “Yeah,” the Doctor says, his gaze focused on Clara. “Yeah, it is.”


	34. Chapter 34

Later that evening back in the flat, Clara’s curled up against his bare chest, her heart still beating fast in her chest and her head still foggy after the orgasm she's coming down from. The Doctor’s slowly tracing her rib bones with a fingertip, and even though both of them are pretty knackered, they can’t seem to fall asleep just yet. There are lots of things that Clara’s missed about him, but nothing comes close to simply lying in bed with his arms around her, listening to his breaths. She’d be lying if she claimed not to enjoy the sex, of course, but if she had to make a choice between it and _this_ , she wouldn’t even have to think twice about it.

   “What happened?” she finally breaks the silence by asking him. “With ... Romana.”

   “Now?” the Doctor asks her, stopping his hand right below one of her breasts. “You want to do this now?”

   “I don’t know when I’m going to have to face her again,” Clara says, rolling around so that she can meet his eyes. “I might run into her tomorrow, and then what am I going to do? Suffer through another already awkward meeting made even more awkward by that I don’t even know why she hates me?”

   “She doesn’t hate you,” the Doctor protests, cupping her face in his hands. “She doesn’t even know you. If she hates anyone, it’s me, and with good reason to.”

   “It feels strange,” Clara mumbles, “the fact that you have an entire life that I know nothing about. Can I ask you something?”

   “I thought you already asked me a question. I was just figuring out how to reply to it.”

   Clara kisses one of the corners of his mouth. “How old are you?”

   “Oh,” the Doctor says, freezing in his movements.

   “I mean, I know you’re about the same age as my parents, so however old you are, it won’t exactly come as a surprise to me. It would be nice to know, that’s all.”

   “How much older than you I am.”

   “Yeah,” Clara admits. “I suppose.”

   The Doctor’s quiet for a couple of seconds before he finally opens his mouth again. “Fifty-seven.”

   “Okay.”

   “Okay?” he echoes.

   “What do you want me to say?” she says. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I never meant to fall in love with you. There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t have. But I did, and your age never had anything to do with it. Do you really think it would start bothering me now?”

   “What about in the future, though?” he asks her. “In ten years, you won’t even be thirty-five, and I’ll be almost seventy.”

   She steals another short kiss from him before looking him in the eyes. “We might both be dead by then, not to mention that there’s no guarantee for that this will work out.”

   The Doctor grimaces. “You’re quite the optimist, aren’t you?”

   “It’s just the truth,” she protests.

   “And if we aren’t dead and still together? What will we do then?”

   “In that case, we’ll figure it out then, but there’s really no need to worry about entirely hypothetical scenarios.”

   The Doctor pulls her closer to him. “I love you, you know that?”

   She smiles against the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of him. “You might have said so a couple of times, yeah.”

   “Well,” he says, “I do.”

   “So,” she says, “tell me about Romana.”

   “We’ve known each other for ... a long time,” he begins hesitantly.

   “That much I already assumed.”

   “I moved here after I graduated from uni, to get away from everything for a while. Jenny told you about what happened, didn’t she?”

   Clara nods.

   “Anyway, Romana was friends with Missy, so that’s how we met. We ... fell in love, I suppose. And I ended up staying for longer than just the summer, going back to university here in Paris to get a master’s degree in French history. I was fully intending to continue my studies here, but then I was offered a teaching position at Glasgow University which would allow me to teach half-time and study half-time. It was all thanks to my dad, who was a professor there at the time. When I made the choice I wasn’t aware of why he’d arranged the opportunity for me, but soon after arriving to Glasgow, I learned that he was ill and only had about a year and a half left to live.”

   “God, I’m sorry.”

   The Doctor shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

   “Still,” Clara says. “He was your _dad_.”

   He hesitates for a second before opening his mouth again. “Can I ask you something?”

   “Go on.”

   “Do you blame me for what happened to Strax?”

   “It wasn’t your fault.”

   “I know,” the Doctor says, “but still, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t ...”

   Clara shakes her head. “You don’t know that, and deciding to let you drive the car even though he knew you were drunk was his own decision. Moreover, I had the best childhood anyone could wish for with Vastra and Jenny as my parents, and if what happened hadn’t happen, I doubt we’d have fallen in love with each other. That’s not ... that’s not a world I’d like to live in.”

   “I’ve never thought about that,” the Doctor admits, his voice slightly raspy, “but I suppose you’re right.”

   “I’m always right,” Clara whispers, a sad smile on her lips. “So, what happened when you’d returned to Glasgow?”

   “I met River,” he says.

   “Your wife.”

   He takes a trembling breath. “Yeah.”

   “And what about Romana?”

   “We were still together, but we knew we wouldn’t get to see each other in almost two years, and ... already after a few months, my life in Paris and my life in Glasgow felt so distant from each other that they could have taken places in separate universes. I still loved Romana, but she wasn’t there.”

   “And River was,” Clara says.

   “Nothing happened between me and River until my father died. Perhaps you could blame it on that grief makes people do stupid things or that on I wasn’t thinking straight, but do you know why I did it? It was because I realised how fragile life was. How easily people could ... just stop existing. You could of course argue that I should have realised that after Strax’s death, but back then I was too busy blaming myself for what happened. When my dad died, there was no one to blame for it. Only the universe.

   “And I ended up asking River to marry me because ... I loved her. When I did it, it didn’t have anything to do with Romana in my mind. Obviously I soon realised that it had _everything_ to do with her, but right then, I was only scared of that if I let River go, I’d stand there one day and it would be too late.

   “The fact that I loved River didn’t negate my feelings for Romana, but I think I understood that ... River brought out the best in me, while Romana brought out the worst in me. My relationship with Romana was chaotic from the start, and it seemed like we were always either fighting or having sex, whereas my relationship with River was ... different in every possible way. And I wanted that. I desperately wanted a future with River.”

   “And Romana’s still upset about it?” Clara asks him, doing her best to sort through her feelings about it all.

   “She got over it,” the Doctor says. “But then we started hooking up again after River’s death, and while we both knew that that was never serious, we had history, and to some extent, still feelings for each other.”

   “And then you met me,” Clara says, rolling around to her back, focusing her gaze on the ceiling.

   “We broke up for real three years ago,” the Doctor says. “I never would have done that to her again. Or to you, for that matter. But it was complicated, it was always complicated, and nothing has been the same between the two of us since then.”

   Clara swallows, unable to come up with anything to say about that.

   “Do you hate me?” the Doctor asks her.

   She shakes her head. “I could never hate you. But I need some time to think about it all, okay? Let’s just go to sleep, now.”

   “Yeah,” the Doctor says, and as they’re falling asleep, their bodies find each other again, Clara curling up against his chest, he placing his arms around her and interlacing their fingers, the Paris night air cold around them.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I updated this fic yesterday, but I already had most of this chapter written, so here you go. Now I'm off to celebrate midsummer. xx

The next morning, Clara, the Doctor and Missy eat breakfast in silence, coffee and freshly baked bread from a bakery a couple of streets away.

   “I think I need to be alone for a while,” Clara admits to the Doctor when they’re back in the bedroom, the Doctor styling his hair in front of the mirror while Clara’s mostly lingering around the room, feeling awkward and out of place.

   “Oh,” the Doctor says, turning his gaze towards her. “Okay.”

   “We could meet up for lunch somewhere,” she suggests, “but I really need a few hours by myself.”

   “You don’t need to explain yourself to me, I wasn’t objecting,” he says. “Twelve o’clock by the stairs outside?”

   Clara nods. “Sounds perfect.”

 

 

Clara walks around the neighbourhood for almost half an hour, losing herself among the cobblestone streets, finally stopping outside a small café that looks typically Parisian. It’s a lovely morning and the sun is warm against Clara’s arms, but she’s on the edge of tears and needs to sit down somewhere.

   “ _Bonjour_ ,” the man behind the counter greets her, and then launches into a paragraph in French that Clara doesn’t understand anything of.

   She looks down at her feet. “I’m sorry, _je ne_... I don’t speak _Français_.”

   “No need to apologise,” the man tells her, his French accent thick but his English better than Clara expected it to be. “What are you doing here all alone in Paris, _chérie_?”

   Clara shrugs, blinking away the tears that are burning behind her eyelids. “It’s a long story. Can I just have a cup of ... _un café, s’il vous plait_? Milk and no sugar.”

   The man smiles encouragingly. “Apparently you know some French.”

   “I googled some phrases before I came here,” Clara admits. “Figured it would be useful to know how to order coffee. Is there wifi here?”

   “ _Oui_ , _oui_ ,” the man tells her, nodding towards a small bowl on the counter filled with pieces of paper. “Take one, it’s the ... _mot de passe_?”

   Clara takes one of the pieces of paper. “Password?”

   “Exactly,” he says as he reaches her the coffee she’s ordered. “Make yourself at home.”

   Clara makes an attempt at returning his smile, but she’s pretty sure her expression is more reminiscent of a grimace. The café’s empty with the exception for an older couple who are chatting away quietly in French. Clara crosses the floor to a table in the corner of the café, from which she has a view over the street outside. There’s something about it that reminds her of fairy tales.

   And she’s the red riding hood, the stupid little girl lost in the forest.

   In order to distract herself from her thoughts, she reaches for her phone. Her finger lingers over the internet app, but at last, she ends up dialling John’s number.

   He sounds slightly confused when he picks up the call. “Clara? Are you okay?”

   “Yeah,” she instinctively says, and then finds herself shaking her head. “No. I don’t know.” She’s crying, fuck, there are tears all over her face, and she can’t bring herself to get up to fetch serviettes from the counter.

   “Oh, Clara,” John says, and that only makes Clara cry harder, gasping for air in between her sobs.

   “I’m so sorry. For everything. For calling you now, even though I know you probably hate me.” She takes a shaky breath. “I just ... I didn’t have anyone else to call. I’m so bloody lonely, John, I don’t know what to do.”

   “I don’t hate you,” he says. “I think you’ve made some mistakes, yes, but I don’t hate you, and I’m glad you called. Even though I wish you wouldn’t have had to under these circumstances.”

   Clara buries her face against the table, ignoring the worried looks the couple are giving her. “I miss you so much.”

   “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere,” he promises her. “Just tell me about what’s happened, as soon as you feel ready.”

   “Everything,” she says, a bitter laugh falling from her lips. “God, what have I done?”

   “Did he do something?” John asks her cautiously.

   “No,” Clara says, wiping tears from her cheeks with a wrist, but it’s no use, as they won’t stop falling, “no, he didn’t ... not like that.”

   “Clara, it’s okay to admit that going there was a mistake. You’re more than welcome back to the flat, anytime you want.”

   “I don’t _want_ to,” she says, “but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t considered it. It’s just ... the Doctor, he’s got an entire life here that he never even mentioned to me. His sister looked like she was about to murder the both of us when she realised how we met. And his friends ... I mean, they’re nice ... or well, most of them, but ...”

   “Most of them?” John echoes.

   “There’s this one woman,” Clara says. “She and the Doctor have history, and I’m pretty sure she hates me. Not to mention that the Doctor apparently went and married his wife while he still was together with the woman. Who _does_ that? Do I know anything at all about him?” She wrinkles her brows when John starts laughing. “It’s not funny.”

   “It kind of is,” John argues in between his laughs. “You, Clara Oswald, running off to Paris with one of your teachers. I never thought I’d get to see that happen.”

   “It’s _not_ funny,” Clara says, but John’s laughter is infectious, and soon she’s smiling, too, through her tears. “I know I already told you that I miss you, but I really, really do.”

   “I miss you, too, my impossible girl.”

   “What should I do?” she asks him. “I love the Doctor, you know I do, but I feel like ... I feel like I can’t be the person I’d need to be, in order to be with him? I know I’m an adult, but I don’t exactly feel like a responsible grown-up with my whole life together, yet, you know? And he’s ... he’s _fifty-seven_ , John. He’s fucking old.”

   “Are you only just realising that now?”

   Clara shakes her head. “No, I knew what I was getting into, at least I think I did, but ...”

   “Listen to me,” John says. “If you want to come back, then do. Don’t stay there just because you feel like you should. Don’t even stay there just because you love him, because more often than sometimes, that’s not enough. Stay there if and only if you actually want to.”

   “Thank you,” Clara says, wiping away the last tears from under her eyes. “Really, thank you so much for picking up the phone, and for ... being my friend.”

   She can hear the smile on his lips when he replies. “Always, Clara.”


	36. Chapter 36

Clara’s eyes are still red and her makeup is completely ruined when she meets the Doctor on the stairs outside of the house Missy lives in, and she knows that he notices. She makes an attempt at a smile, but it’s half-hearted at best.

   “Are you okay?” he asks her, leaning down to kiss her cheeks.

   She hesitates for a second before she shakes her head. She’s lied one too many times and if there’s anyone who deserves the truth, it’s him. “Not really.”

   He takes a couple of steps back to take in the sight of her.  “Did something happen?”

   “Can we get some food, first?” Clara asks him. “I’m hungry.”

   “I was thinking we should go for a picnic,” he says, holding up a wooden basket that Clara’s failed to notice that he’s apparently been holding all along. “There’s this park which I think you would like ...”

   This time the smile on Clara’s lips is more sincere, even though it still doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “That sounds perfect.”

 

 

They take the _métro_ without saying much to each other, but when they get off at the station Buttes Chaumont, Clara instinctively reaches for the Doctor’s hand. The park appears to be huge, and they walk past dozens of people who are out running and teenagers who are sitting on the grass, soaking in the sun. As they find their way further into the park, Clara slowly realises why the Doctor brought her there. Parts of the park are located on hills, and the view over the city from there is breathtaking.

   “How much further are you taking me?” Clara asks him as they continue along one of the paths that meander through the park, surrounded by all the greenery.

   “Not much further,” he promises her, stroking his thumb over her hand.

   They reach a small lake, and the Doctor spreads out the blanket from the basket on the grass close to it. The lake glitters in the sunlight and a red bridge spans the water.

   “There’s a temple, somewhere up there,” the Doctor tells Clara, pointing towards the island in the middle of the lake. “The view from there is lovely, too, if you feel like climbing up there after we’ve eaten.”

   Clara settles down on the blanket, reaching for the basket to go through its contents. There’s lemonade and cheese, baguettes and strawberries, chocolate muffins and a bottle of red wine.

   “You really didn’t have to do this,” she says, looking up at the Doctor, and she suddenly feels close to tears again, in a bittersweet way.

   His lips curve upwards, but there’s a cautiousness to the smile. “Thought you would appreciate it.”

   “I do,” she says, touching one of his cheeks softly, and she does, she really does.

   “I wasn’t sure about whether I should bring the wine,” the Doctor says, his tone slightly absent-minded. “I know you don’t really drink, but in case ...”

   “I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine,” Clara says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Go on, pour me a glass.”

   “Right,” he says, reaching for the bottle and two of the plastic cups.

   Clara raises her cup in a half-sarcastic toast. “Cheers.”

   “So,” the Doctor says as they sip their glasses of wine, “tell me, what’s wrong?”

   “Everything,” she says with a shrug. “Nothing. I don’t know. I’m just so fucking _confused_.”

   He regards her quietly, slowly stroking a fingertip over her leg.

   “It’s just ...” She takes a trembling breath. “You’ve got this entire life here, and I can’t help but feel like I don’t belong in it. I realise that I’m probably just being stupid and that there’s no way I could feel at home here after less than a day, but it’s exhausting, nonetheless. And I feel like I should be able to handle it, but I don’t know if I am. Like I said yesterday, I’m not going to leave, because I desperately _want_ to be with you, but it’s not going to be easy, is it? It’s never going to be easy.”

   “Oh, Clara.”

   “What is it like, being in love with someone so much younger than you?” she asks him, reaching for a strawberry. It tastes sweet on her tongue. “Does it ever make you feel uncomfortable?”

   “Has it ever made me uncomfortable?” he repeats her question. “Yeah, definitely, but to be honest I think I would have a bigger reason to worry if it hadn’t. Sleeping with one of your students isn’t exactly ethically right, is it? And I know that there will always be people judging us, but ... loving you has always been the easiest goddamned thing in the world.”

   Clara lies down on her side on the blanket, leaning an elbow against it, watching the Doctor as he empties his glass of wine. “Yeah,” she finally mumbles, and it’s strange, how his mere presence somehow makes her forget all about her doubts.

   “What are you thinking about?” he asks her, stretching out his legs.

   “How the hell you’re surviving in this heat, dressed all in black and with that kind of boots on your feet,” Clara says, mostly to change the topic of conversation.

   He laughs. “I don’t know. Guess I’m some kind of alien.”

   She reaches for another strawberry. “Guess you must be. How did you end up on earth?”

   “By accident, obviously. Can’t imagine anyone would want to come here out of their own free will.”

   “Just my luck,” she says, “falling for someone from another planet.”

   “It has its perks, though,” he says.

   She raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

   “I’m talking about the free space travel.”

   “Of course.”

   “Just imagine,” he says, his tone amused, “we can go anywhere we want in the universe.”

   “Actually,” she says, her gaze focused on him, “I think I’m okay with just staying here, as long as I’ve got you.”

   “Yeah,” he agrees after a few seconds of silence, leaning over to place a strand of her hair behind one of her ears. “Me, too.”


	37. Chapter 37

When Missy leaves for Singapore, the Doctor feels like he can breathe properly for the first time in several days. She hasn’t said anything out loud to him about Clara since they first arrived, but it’s difficult to miss her disapproving glances and the way her smiles never reach her eyes when she’s talking to her.

   The fact that Missy objects to their relationship isn’t what bothers the Doctor, though. It’s how it makes him feel uncomfortable about being with her when Missy’s around. He starts worrying about what strangers must think about the two of them. He starts worrying about what _Clara_ thinks about him. The doubts have always been there, sure, but they were easier to ignore back when the two of them weren’t able to show themselves together in public in the same way, when it felt ridiculous to him to even entertain the thought of a future together with her.

   That evening, the Doctor cooks pasta with _ratatouille_ while Clara sits on the kitchen table, asking him about the names of the different groceries in French. Her pronunciations of the words when she echoes them back to him are dreadful but endearing.

   “Soon you’ll speak fluent French,” he tells her with a smile, and she rolls her eyes at him in return.

   When they sleep together, the Doctor feels like he understands why people call it making love for the first time in his life. If you were to describe what love tastes like, he imagines it would taste like the skin on the insides of her thighs. If you were to describe what it sounds like, he imagines it would sound like her whispering his name, her voice breathless, the sound muffled as she buries her face against his chest. If you were to describe what it looks like, he imagines it would look like the love bites he keeps finding all over his body, unable to remember when she left them on his skin.

 

 

“Territorial, is she?” Romana says, touching one of the love bites on his neck with a fingertip. Tegan and Nyssa invited Clara over to their flat for dinner, and the Doctor took the opportunity to ask Romana to meet him at a bar in the 10th _arrondissement_. To his relief, she agreed.

   “Don’t,” the Doctor says, placing a hand around her wrist.

   She lowers it without protesting. “Does she know you’re here?”

   “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

   “So where is she, your Lolita?”

   “ _Romana_.”

   “I’m sorry,” she says, and even though she doesn’t sound too sincere, it’s something. “Let’s just get drunk, shall we?”

   “I don’t really drink, anymore,” the Doctor admits.

   “Of course you don’t. Whisky?”

   “Always,” he says, and he has to admit that there’s something comforting about how well she knows him. She’s one of the few people who have been constants in his life for as long as he can remember, and even though the two of them always seem to be a disaster just about to happen, he’s missed her.

   “So, I suppose I should ask you how you’ve been,” Romana says when they’ve settled down at a table in the bar, glasses of alcohol in their hands. It reminds the Doctor of being twenty-two years old and feeling like every night would last forever.

   He shrugs, taking a swig from his glass. “It’s a long story.”

   “Why did you do it?” she asks him, dropping the fake politeness in her tone. “Bring her here?”

   “She’d still be my girlfriend if I hadn’t,” the Doctor retorts. “Nothing would’ve been different.”

   “You never brought River here.”

   He flinches. “Don’t bring her into this.”

   “Almost twenty years,” Romana says, ignoring his comment, “and you didn’t bring her here a single time.”

   “I know,” he says. “I know, okay? And Paris will always be _our_ city, but fuck, Romana, we both know it’s been over for decades. What I did – tried to keep my life here and my life with River separate from each other – was a mistake. I love you, you know I do, but not in that way.”

   “Do you love Clara?” she asks him, slowly stroking a fingertip along the rim of her glass.

   He turns his gaze down towards the table. “She makes me feel like there are more wonders in this universe than I could ever have dreamt of.”

   “Yeah,” Romana says, “it is like that, love, isn’t it?”

   “How have _you_ been?” he asks her.

   “Okay.”

   “That’s not an answer.”

   “Still working on becoming President,” she says, the hint of a smile on her lips.

   A corner of the Doctor’s mouth curves upwards in response. “Good thing you haven’t succeeded yet, I wouldn’t want to live in a country that you were the leader of.”

   “Oh, shut up.”

   “Just saying ...”

   “I’ll have you executed for that comment.”

   “ _J’y croirai quand je le verrai_.”

   Romana rolls her eyes at him. “Always as arrogant.”

   “Yep, that’s me.”

   “It’s just strange,” she says, and the tone in her voice tells him that she isn’t talking about executions anymore. “Seeing you with someone who’s the age we were back when we first met.”

   “We both know that isn’t what really bothers you,” he says, and that’s the reason why Romana’s reaction doesn’t make him uncomfortable in the same way Missy’s did.

  “I’m not in love with you anymore, either,” she says, “but once upon a time you were the love of my life, and ... I can’t escape from that, you know?”

   “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

 

 

“Doctor!” Tegan greets him when she opens the door to her and Nyssa’s flat for him. “Just in time for dessert. Can’t promise it’ll be edible, though, seeing as Nyssa’s the one who’s been cooking.”

   “I helped,” Clara shouts from the kitchen.

   “Yeah, I don’t think that was an improvement,” Tegan shouts back, her tone amused.

   The Doctor can’t help but smile. “I’m glad to see that you seem to be getting along.”

   “Me, too,” Tegan says. “Wouldn’t want to clash with your girlfriend, would I?” She casts a glance over her shoulder and then continues. “How did your meeting with Romana go?”

   “I doubt things will ever be the same between the two of us again,” the Doctor says, “but we talked, and I don’t think our friendship is ruined for the rest of our lives, either, so I’d say it went pretty well, considering the circumstances.”

   “Told you so,” she says. “You always sort things out, sooner or later.”

   He grimaces, and then follows her to the kitchen, where Nyssa’s in the middle of taking out a soufflé from the oven. It’s burnt and shrunken and not a particularly pretty sight.

   “A soufflé isn’t a soufflé, a soufflé is the recipe,” the Doctor says, remembering Clara’s words from what feels like a lifetime ago.

   She laughs from where she’s sitting at the table. “Is, yeah.”

   “Well, it doesn’t look worse than your birthday cake last year,” Tegan says, leaning over Nyssa’s shoulder to study the soufflé. “What do you guys say, is it too beautiful to live or shall we give it a try?”

   “It looks pretty appalling,” Clara says, “but what’s the worst that can happen?”

   “We might all end up in hospital with food poisoning,” the Doctor points out.

   “My cooking has never _killed_ anyone,” Nyssa says.

   “What about Adric?” Tegan says.

   “Too soon, Tegan,” Nyssa says, “too soon.” When she notices the confused expression on Clara’s face, she laughs. “Don’t worry, it’s just an inside joke.”

   “I’ve stopped asking them about it,” the Doctor says. “Apparently it’s got something to do with a dinosaur.”

   “It’s a long story,” Nyssa says as she places four plates with mashed pieces of soufflé on the table. “So, who’s brave enough to take the first bite?”

   “Mm,” the Doctor says, raising his spoon to his mouth, “delicious.”

   “Fuck you,” Clara tells him, but she’s smiling.

   “Next time, we’ll let him cook,” Nyssa says.

   “Definitely.”


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short update for you guys. Hope you enjoy it, and I'll hopefully be back with a longer chapter soon. xx

It doesn’t take many days for Clara and the Doctor to get into a routine. They wake up in each other’s arms. They open a window to let the Parisian morning air in. They eat breakfast in bed or in the kitchen, Clara always wearing one of the Doctor’s t-shirts. She usually leaves the flat around ten o’clock to get some time alone, taking the métro to unfamiliar arrondissements, walking around in parks, visiting museums, reading novels in cafés or talking to John on her phone. A few hours later she and the Doctor meet up for lunch, and she’s always happy to see him. Some days, they part ways again after lunch, and some other days, she hangs out with him and his friends. She particularly enjoys the company of Tegan and Nyssa, but the more time she spends with them all, the more she likes every single one of them. Well, with one expectation. Romana might be making a half-hearted effort to be polite towards her, but her disapproval of Clara’s presence is still palpable.

   The days go by in a blur, and when Clara thinks back at particular moments, she’s never quite sure of whether they happened two days or two weeks ago. It’s as if they’re living in a bubble, cut off from reality. She doesn’t mind it, but every now and then she remembers that the summer won’t last forever and they’ll have to return to England eventually. Sure, she’s just got one year of uni left, and after that they’ll be able to spend the rest of their lives together without having to worry about any authorities finding out about them, but she knows that there'll always be people judging them. The glances they get when they’re having lunch together or walking down the streets in the city hand in hand are proof enough of that. 

   And that’s just assuming that they’ll actually make it through the year.

   ”You’re worrying again,” the Doctor says, catching her gaze across the living room. He’s lying on the sofa with a book in his hands and his glasses on his nose. She’s sitting in one of the armchairs with a glass of red wine in a hand and her wet hair in a towel after just having taken a shower.

   ”Am not,” she protests, but there’s no conviction in her voice.

   He rolls his eyes at her. ”Clara, I know you, I can tell when you’re lying.”

   ”I think that’s your worst quality, actually,” she says, taking a sip from the glass.

   ”Is the wine good?” he asks her, turning a page in the novel he’s reading.

   ”I’m not going to get you a glass of it from the kitchen.”

   ”What makes you think that I would ever ask you for something like that?”

   ”Literature student, remember? I’m literally studying the art of reading subtexts.”

   ”So if I were to tell you to stop worrying, what would the subtext of that be?”

   She empties the glass of wine and places it on the sofa table before crossing the floor to the sofa and sinking down onto it next to him, letting him place an arm around her. ”I think it would be something like ’I love you’.”

   ”Okay,” he says, ”you win.”

   ”Don’t I always.”

   ”I love you.”

   ”I know.”

   ”You’re supposed to say ’I love you too’.”

   She turns her head to the side and strokes her tongue across his cheek with a smile on her lips. ”You know me, I like to keep people on the edge. Maybe I love you, maybe I don’t …”

   ”Playing hard to get, are you?”

   ”Always.”

   He lets his book fall to the floor, rolls around so that he’s on top of her, and kisses her lips roughly. She responds to the kiss with an enthusiasm that echoes his, grimacing at the way his glasses bump into her face.

   ”Sorry to break it to you, but you’re shit at it,” the Doctor says, his voice slightly breathless.

   ”Oh, shut up and kiss me again,” she tells him, grabbing his glasses and placing them on the table.

   He shakes his head with an amused expression on his face. ”Not before you admit to loving me.”

   ”You’re so _childish_.”

   ”You’re one to talk.”

   ”Guess there’ll be no kissing tonight, then.”

   ”God, I hate you,” he says, pressing his lips against hers again.

   ”I love you too,” she whispers in between their kisses. ”I love you so much, I think it’ll be my downfall.”


End file.
